heart health milestone | Dr. Brian Peterson and his surgical team at St. Luke’s Heart & Vascular Institute are celebrating a major milestone as they are first in the world to perform 1,000 Transcarotid Artery Revascularization (TCAR) procedures. The surgery is a minimally invasive treatment for carotid artery disease, and it also reduces the risk of stroke. “Reaching 1,000 TCAR procedures is an incredible milestone, but what matters most is what those procedures represent: 1,000 opportunities to provide our patients with advanced treatment designed to help reduce their risk of stroke,” Peterson says. “This achievement belongs to our entire surgical team. It takes tremendous skill, coordination and commitment from everyone involved to provide this level of care, and I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished together.”
investigating the gut micro biome
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have been awarded a nearly $11 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. In collaboration with the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the team will study why some gut bacteria transition from benign to hostile. Examples of this phenomenon include Clostridioides difficile and a type of Escherichia coli. They can live harmlessly in the human gut, but for some people, C. difficile begins producing damaging toxins, while E. coli causes urinary tract infections. The study’s goal is to decipher what biological triggers cause the bugs to become pathogenic, allowing physicians to recognize at-risk patients and offer better treatment.
trends in autism diagnoses
Research from Saint Louis University offers insight into the recent rise in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses. Lead by professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience Dr. Erick Messias, Ph.D., the JAMA Network study analyzed the electronic health records for 171,134 patients from 2016 to 2024. It is among the first to track sex-specific autism diagnosis trends across childhood, adolescence and adulthood within the same health system, before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest that the reported increase in ASD diagnoses are due to increased recognition of females with the condition, rather than a uniform population level increase. In males, autism diagnoses remained steady or declined across the time period, but those in women rose sharply after 2020.
immune cells and healthy aging
A study from Washington University School of Medicine has shown a link between two immune cell types and healthy aging. In partnership with Nationwide Children’s Hospital and King’s College London, researchers found that having more granzyme K-producing white blood cells tipped the scale toward healthy aging, while having more granzyme B-producing cells was associated with chronic disease and even death. “We have found that there are clues in the blood that can tell us whether someone is on a healthy or unhealthy aging trajectory,” says co-corresponding author Dr. Maxim N. Artyomov, the Alumni Endowed Professor of Pathology and Immunology. “Identifying specific biological red flags in the immune system could pave the way for early-warning tests that spot disease risks years before a clinical diagnosis.”
