News Release

Cedars-Sinai Medical tip sheet for July 2000

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

HEART RESEARCHERS AT CEDARS-SINAI DIRECT STUDIES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FIRST IMPLANTABLE DEVICE TO TREAT ATRIAL RHYTHM ABNORMALITIES

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center assisted in developing the computer programs that make sophisticated decisions in a new type of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) that for the first time treats rhythm problems originating in the upper chambers of the heart, as well as those in the lower chambers. With colleagues at several other cardiac centers in the United States and other countries, Cedars-Sinai physicians, directed by cardiologist and research scientist Charles D. Swerdlow, M.D., also conducted the ICD's first clinical study. This is the first study to demonstrate that an implantable device can reliably detect irregular heart rhythms for extended periods of time, up to days at a time.

CEDARS-SINAI PATIENT WHO UNDERWENT LAPAROSCOPIC PROCEDURE TO DONATE A KIDNEY TO HER COUSIN WENT BACK TO WORK IN A WEEK AND TALKS ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF THIS NEW TECHNIQUE

When an Alta Loma, CA, woman donated a kidney to save the life of her cousin in Hermosa Beach, CA, she underwent a video-assisted laparoscopic nephrectomy at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and was back to work about a week after having her kidney removed. Unlike traditional living kidney donations, which require a long incision and weeks or months of recovery time, this kidney was removed through a mini incision (a small port). The kidney donor and recipient, as well as the surgeon, are available for interviews.

RESEARCH CONDUCTED BY KEITH BLACK, M.D., AT CEDARS-SINAI MAXINE DUNITZ NEUROSURGICAL INSTITUTE RECEIVES FUNDING OF PRESTIGIOUS JAVITS NEUROSCIENCE INVESTIGATOR AWARD

Neurosurgeon Keith L. Black, M.D., Director of the Cedars-Sinai Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute, has been selected to receive the Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award, an honor that provides up to seven years of research funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a branch of the National Institutes of Health.

RECOVERY TIMES DROP AS CEDARS-SINAI SURGEON PIONEERS A FULLY ENDOSCOPIC PROCEDURE TO REACH AND REMOVE SKULL-BASE TUMORS THROUGH AN INCISION BETWEEN THE EYES

Using extremely thin, flexible and precise endoscopic instruments, a new surgical approach performed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is making hospital stays and recovery times shorter for patients who have tumors located along the bottom surface of the brain and directly behind the eyes.

“DIRECTED DONATION” LIVER TRANSPLANT AT CEDARS-SINAI: AT A TIME OF TWO CRISES, DISTANT RELATIVES SAVE THE LIFE OF ONE FAMILY MEMBER WHILE GRIEVING THE LOSS OF ANOTHER

When a car crash on the roads of northern Indiana took the life of 18-year-old Jonathon “Johnny” Bender in mid-June, his mother and other family members decided to offer his organs for transplantation to save other lives. One of those was the life of John Bender, 62, a resident of southern California, who was distantly related to the donor on both his mother’s and father’s sides of the family.

CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER RANKS BEST AMONG SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA HEART HOSPITALS IN U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT'S "AMERICA'S BEST HOSPITALS"

Long renowned for excellence in cardiology and cardiac surgery, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has received the highest ranking for heart care among all Southern California hospitals in the 2000 edition of U.S. News & World Report's America's Best Hospitals. Cedars-Sinai is also second in California and 16th among the 50 top-ranked heart hospitals in the country.

CEDARS-SINAI RESEARCHER AND PIONEER PROVIDES UPDATE ON BIOARTIFICIAL LIVER

Achilles A. Demetriou, M.D., Ph.D., the key developer of a system designed to extend the lives of patients suffering from liver failure, began to study the biologic mechanisms and functions of liver cells while at the National Institutes of Health in the 1970s. The resulting Bioartificial Liver (BAL), an external device to cleanse the blood of patients whose livers have failed – providing time for their own organs to recover or for a donor liver to become available for transplantation – became a therapeutic reality in the mid-1990s. Last month, Dr. Demetriou provided an update on this technology at the 46th annual conference of the American Society of Artificial Internal Organs.

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