NHLBI In The News

Researchers are reporting development of a new method that could improve the safety and efficacy of bone marrow transplants used for treating advanced blood cancers.  In the new study using mouse models of lymphoma (a type of blood cancer),  the researchers genetically engineered immune cells (T cells) from a donor in a way that made the cells less likely to cause graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). GVHD is a potentially deadly complication in which donor white blood cells attack healthy tissues in the recipient. The study, published in Nature Medicine, was partly funded by NHLBI.

Complications from asthma, including death, are more likely for African Americans. A group of NHLBI-funded researchers found that a unique type of inflammation of the airways might be partly to blame, as it makes black patients less responsive to asthma treatment. The findings, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, are the result of one of the largest and most diverse U.S. clinical trials on race and asthma.

Scientists have known for years that patients with psoriasis are at increased risk for developing heart disease. Now, researchers are reporting that they have identified a group of molecules that may help explain this link. In a pair of studies in mice, researchers showed how the inflammatory response to psoriasis can lead to altered levels of certain immune system molecules, increasing the risk of fatal blood clots. The studies could lead to novel treatments to lower the risk of heart disease in people with psoriasis, the researchers say. One of the studies, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation Insight, was partly funded by NHLBI.

Hospitalized patients tend to have a higher risk of cardiac arrest and transfers to an intensive care unit if they are in wards when other patients have experienced similar emergencies, a new study suggests.  The observational study followed about 84,000 patients over a four-year span.  After one patient on a ward experienced a “critical event” (such as cardiac arrest, death, or transfer to ICU), the likelihood that a second patient on the ward might do so within the next six hours rose by nearly 18 percent, the study found.  The findings underscore the need for hospital-based physicians to pay closer scrutiny to other patients who share the same unit as critically ill patients being treated on hospital wards, the researchers say. The study, which is funded by NHLBI, was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.