What's happening in research at Sunnybrook.
RESEARCH
Human drano
Only months ago, totally blocked cardiac arteries left many patients in chronic, sometimes debilitating pain and without hope. This condition was often untreatable. Now, for some patients, an answer has been developed. And it works something like Drano.
Dr. Bradley Strauss, chief of Schulich Heart Centre, has developed a treatment that uses an enzyme, called collagenase. Once it's injected into the clogged artery it can soften the blockage. This allows a catheter to be threaded through the blockage. A stent is then inserted into the artery, allowing blood to flow freely. No one else in the world is performing this procedure. With further study, it's expected that Dr. Strauss's treatment will soon be available to people around the world.
Not a moment to waste
When a breast tumour is found, the goal is to get it out as fast as possible. Sometimes, the more aggressive ones are too large to be operated on. Often, chemotherapy is used to quickly shrink them to make surgery possible. This means that the shrinking effects of the chemotherapy must be closely monitored, sometimes difficult to do accurately.
Researchers at Odette Cancer Centre have developed a new imaging method that can effectively monitor tumour activity, as early as one to four weeks from the time it is treated. Diffuse optical spectroscopy measures infrared light absorption in tissue. This makes a map of the tumour that's used to monitor its response to chemotherapy. With this new, more functional imaging method, doctors can decide if the chemotherapy is working – making treatment more effective for individual patients.
Generation Y researchers
He's discovering new ways to kill cancer now, but when Sunnybrook researcher Dr. Rajiv Chopra was in high school, he couldn't have guessed that's where he'd end up. That's because no teacher was ever able to show him the possibilities. Dr. Chopra is on a mission to take bright high school students under his wing and get them started on their careers early.
Through a program called Talented Offerings for Programs in the Sciences (TOPS), and with the help of his peers and their teams, Dr. Chopra is bringing high school students from Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute in Toronto into the lab and giving them real working research positions. With access to the latest research technologies, Sunnybrook scientists are helping these teenagers become the next generation of medical researchers.
Where does it hurt?
When a baby weighs little more than a can of pop, the idea of that little one suffering any kind of pain is hard to bear. Until recently, it was impossible to know for sure. There are over 40 measures of pain in full-term babies, but for critically-premature babies there are almost none that are reliable. Researchers in the Women & Babies Program are shedding light on this
problem. Through a recent study, they were able to identify four facial actions present when the heels of pre-term babies were pricked. Their study highlighted that facial expression is only part of the puzzle. Another piece is body movements. A follow-up study is now underway to add to the measures medical staff can use to identify the pain experienced by our tiniest patients.
Tiny tumour-tracking bubbles
Sunnybrook's Dr. Martin Yaffe has accepted a challenge – he's the co-leader of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research's One Millimetre Cancer Challenge. The goal is to find cancer when tumours are one millimetre, the size of a head of a pin. In order to do that, he has to find cancers fast. Another Sunnybrook researcher, Dr. Peter Burns, is helping him to do that with micro-bubbles. These microscopic bubbles of gas are injected into the bloodstream and then hit with ultrasound. This makes the bubbles vibrate, revealing areas where new blood vessels are growing from existing ones, a sign that cancer may be spreading. They're also working on ways that pair ultrasound and micro-bubbles to deliver targeted chemotherapy to very specific places in the body. This will avoid exposing healthy cells to chemotherapy drugs. It also means that cancers that can't be reached with surgery will one day be treated more effectively. Faster and better is the mantra of these cancer researchers.
Dream catcher
Here's something that doesn't happen only in the movies. Using deep brain stimulation, Sunnybrook scientists recently doubled the dreaming sleep of patients with severe Parkinson's disease. These patients were already undergoing another neurological procedure for their condition, making it possible to study this area of the brain at the same time. Doctors used a device similar to a pacemaker – but for the brain. Using electrodes implanted into a 3mm area that's the source of P waves (the precursor to rapid eye movement) scientists were able to selectively increase the amount of dreaming time of the patients. Further research using this breakthrough technique could unlock the secrets to new treatments for depression, dementia and stroke.
Get The Lead Out, Girls!
A recent Sunnybrook study showed that physical activity in teenage girls has a direct bearing on their brain health later in life. " Youth who are active have better cognitive and academic performance. We think it is possible that early-life physical activity – similar to early-life education – could help to build 'cognitive reserve' that has long-lasting benefits," says Dr. Laura Middleton, principal investigator of the study. And it's never too late for the rest of us. Women who were inactive in adolescence but became physically active in later life had lower risk of cognitive impairment than those who remained inactive. So get your game on!