GPB Passport icon GPB Passport icon Passport
GPB donate icon GPB donate icon Donate
Sign Up For Our Newsletter

News Articles: Treatments

If the brain is a musical instrument, "the electrophysiology is the music," says <a href="https://profiles.ucsd.edu/alexander.khalessi">Dr. Alexander Khalessi</a>. New tools to treat epilepsy patients now let doctors "listen to the music a little bit better."

Lasers, robots, and tiny electrodes are transforming treatment of severe epilepsy

For people with drug-resistant epilepsy, surgery used to be seen as a last resort. Now it's often the treatment of choice.

|
By:
  • Jon Hamilton
"I was much less self-assured now that I was a patient myself," says neurosurgeon Henry Marsh. "I suddenly felt much less certain about how I'd been [as a doctor], how I'd handled patients, how I'd spoken to them."

After cancer diagnosis, a neurosurgeon sees life, death and his career in a new way

Dr. Henry Marsh felt comfortable in hospitals — until he was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. "I was much less self-assured now that I was a patient myself," he says. His book is And Finally.

|
By:
  • Terry Gross
Licensed vocational nurse Denise Saldana vaccinates Pri DeSilva, associate director of Individual and Corporate Giving, with a fourth Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine booster at the Dr. Kenneth Williams Health Center in Los Angeles, Nov. 1, 2022.

The FDA considers a major shift in the nation's COVID vaccine strategy

The new approach would simplify vaccination guidance so that, every fall, people would get a new shot, updated to try to match whatever variant is dominant.

|
By:
  • Rob Stein

Therapy by chatbot? The promise and challenges in using AI for mental health

Some companies and researchers think smart computers might eventually help with provider shortages in mental health, and some consumers are already turning to chatbots to build "emotional resilience."

|
By:
  • Yuki Noguchi
Dr. Sarah Prager and Dr. Kelly Quinley work together for the nonprofit TEAMM, Training, Education and Advocacy in Miscarriage Management, which operates on the premise that "many people experience miscarriage before they're established with an OBGYN."

Many ERs offer minimal care for miscarriage. One group wants that to change

A group of doctors trains health care providers to treat miscarriage in the emergency department. This could be increasingly important in states where abortion is outlawed.

|
By:
  • Patrick Adams
A Washington, D.C., resident has an operation growing psilocybin mushrooms. Brain researchers are increasingly studying psychedelic compounds like psilocybin and LSD as potential treatments for anxiety, depression and other disorders.

Psychedelic drugs may launch a new era in psychiatric treatment, brain scientists say

Psychedelic drugs were a hot topic at this year's Society for Neuroscience meeting. Researchers hope the drugs can help people with disorders like depression and PTSD.

|
By:
  • Jon Hamilton
When women get a blood test during pregnancy that looks at free-floating DNA, they expect it to tell about the health of the fetus. But the test sometimes finds signs of cancer in the mother.

A new kind of blood test can screen for many cancers — as some pregnant people learn

Testing pregnant people's blood to look at free-floating DNA can tell doctors about the health of the fetus. But these tests sometime turn up DNA that might be shed by cancerous cells.

|
By:
  • Nell Greenfieldboyce
Katie Pope Kopp, 64, of Parkville, Mo., at Union Station in Kansas City this week. Kopp underwent a new form of experimental CAR T-cell therapy that used the CRISPR gene-editing technique to treat her non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The cancer has been in remission for over a year.

CRISPR gene-editing may boost cancer immunotherapy, new study finds

Using CRISPR to modify certain immune cells could make cancer-fighting immunotherapy more potent for a broader set of patients. Two people who went through the treatment share their stories.

|
By:
  • Rob Stein
This illustration made available by the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health depicts cells in an Alzheimer's-affected brain. An experimental drug modestly slowed the brain disease's progression, researchers reported Tuesday.

Study: Alzheimer's drug shows modest success slowing declines in memory, thinking

In a large study, the experimental Alzheimer's drug lecanemab reduced the rate of cognitive decline by 27 percent in people in the early stages of the disease.

|
By:
  • Jon Hamilton

Here's how some therapists are tackling structural racism in their practice

A new wave of counselors is supporting people of color by 'decolonizing' the practice of therapy. They aim to make therapy more culturally responsive and to take generational trauma into account.

|
By:
  • Lauren Beard
Antonio Rapuano got an infusion of a monoclonal antibody to treat his COVID in Albano, Italy in 2021. Such infusions have been effective treatments for COVID during the pandemic, but doctors are now finding that most monoclonal antibodies no longer work against new variants of SARS-CoV-2.

How monoclonal antibodies lost the fight with new COVID variants

The treatments were highly popular earlier in the pandemic. One by one, they got knocked out by more convenient, less expensive treatment options, and new COVID variants.

|
By:
  • Pien Huang

A cell biologist shares the wonder of researching life's most fundamental form

Physician Siddhartha Mukherjee explains how cellular science could lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer, HIV, Type 1 diabetes and sickle cell anemia. His new book is The Song of the Cell.

|
By:
  • Terry Gross
After a dose of ketamine, special video games that offered a depressed player positive feedback, in the form of smiling faces or encouraging words, seemed to boost the length of time the drug quelled depression.

Smiling faces might help the drug ketamine keep depression at bay

In a recent small study, the antidepressant effects of ketamine lasted longer when an intravenous dose was followed with computer games featuring smiling faces or words aimed at boosting self-esteem.

|
By:
  • Jon Hamilton
A doctor points to PET scan results that are part of Alzheimer's disease research. Much work in the field focuses a substance called beta-amyloid. A new study could test whether that's the right target.

What causes Alzheimer's? Study puts leading theory to 'ultimate test'

Researchers are launching a make-or-break study to test the conventional wisdom about what causes Alzheimer's disease.

|
By:
  • Jon Hamilton
A new European study grabbed headlines this week, as it seemed to question the efficacy of colonoscopies as a cancer screening tool. But U.S. physicians say there were big limits to that study. They cite more than a decade of research showing colonoscopies save lives.

Colonoscopies save lives. Doctors push back against European study that casts doubt

Colon cancer specialists worry that results of a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine could be misconstrued, and keep patients from getting lifesaving cancer screening.

|
By:
  • Allison Aubrey