Vol.1 No.2, October 2006

NOTE TO EDITORS/REPORTERS:  Response to the inaugural issue of this e-news service, JHM Health News, has been positive, and Hopkins welcomes further comments and suggestions for improving this means of sending you monthly medicine and health story ideas for your direct use or follow up. Contact me at mednews@jhmi.edu to set up interviews, for help with identifying patient stories in your area, and to arrange for photographs or other services.

Comments, questions or requests to be added to or deleted from the distribution list can also sent to mednews@jhmi.edu.  To view other news from Johns Hopkins Medicine, go to http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/index.html

IN THIS ISSUE:

• MICROSURGICAL SPERM HARVESTING FOR MALE INFERTILITY
• NEW SURGERY FOR REMOVING HARD-TO-DETECT POLYPS
• ROTATOR CUFF INJURIES YIELD TO NOVEL OPERATION
• THE END OF PAINFUL, UNINFORMATIVE NERVE CONDUCTION STUDIES?
• ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT FOR ERRATIC HEARTBEATS

MICROSURGICAL SPERM HARVESTING FOR MALE INFERTILITY
In an estimated 30 percent of couples unable to conceive, problems in the male’s fertility are the sole cause. Male infertility may result from hormonal disorders, infection, genital abnormality or complications of surgery or drugs that reduce sperm production.  When a problem with sperm production is suspected, a Johns Hopkins urologist, Karen Boyle, M.D., who specializes in microsurgical sperm harvesting, offers two outpatient surgical options.

NEW SURGERY FOR REMOVING HARD-TO-DETECT POLYPS
An outpatient endoscopy procedure that takes less than two hours can remove even the most difficult nonmalignant polyps within the gastrointestinal tract.  Most polyps in the colon can be easily removed during a screening colonoscopy, but others that grow flat and are not easily detected, if not found, can severely damage the intestines.  Regardless of shape, size or location, Johns Hopkins gastroenterologist Sergey Kantsevoy, M.D., can find any polyp with use of an endoscopic ultrasound and a saline injection. This minimally invasive procedure has low complication rates, putting patients back to work and play fast.

ROTATOR CUFF INJURIES YIELD TO NOVEL OPERATION
Most major shoulder injuries result from partial or complete tears of the rotator cuff -- the four muscles that help keep the top of the shoulder in place.  Minor tears are usually treated with physical therapy, medication or steroid injections, but for those with massive damage, a Johns Hopkins orthopedic surgeon uses a new prosthetic shoulder that helps patients recover maximum function.

THE END OF PAINFUL, UNINFORMATIVE NERVE CONDUCTION STUDIES?
For years, patients with nerve pain have submitted to sometimes painful nerve-conduction studies only to be pronounced perfectly normal.  Why? Because most evaluation tests focused only on damage to nerves with large fibers, ignoring many nerves with small fibers.  Now, a new noninvasive skin test developed at Johns Hopkins calculates the loss of conductivity in small fibers that frequently heralds the onset of more than 100 types of peripheral neuropathy affecting an estimated 20 million Americans.

ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT FOR ERRATIC HEARTBEATS
Hopkins doctors are now finding success with alternative therapies for those diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (A-fib), the extremely rapid twitching of the upper chambers of the heart resulting in an irregular heartbeat.  For years, the only alternative for the more than 2 million Americans who have A-fib was an open-chest operation to redirect the heart’s random electrical impulses to get the upper and lower chambers pumping in sync again.  Now, Johns Hopkins cardiologists are stopping the flutter much less invasively.

For previous issues of JHM Health News go to: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/mediaII/MNU/index.html