Hepatitis C treatment cures over 90 percent of patients with cirrhosis

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Oral combination proves safe for patients who could not have interferon therapy

SAN ANTONIO (April 15, 2014) — Twelve weeks of an investigational oral therapy cured hepatitis C infection in more than 90 percent of patients with liver cirrhosis and was well tolerated by these patients, according to an international study that included researchers from UT Medicine San Antonio and the Texas Liver Institute. Historically, hepatitis C cure rates in patients with cirrhosis (liver scarring) have been lower than 50 percent and the treatment was not safe for many of these patients.

Hepatitis C virus is the No. 1 driver of cirrhosis, liver transplants and liver cancer in the United States, noted Fred Poordad, M.D., lead author on the study, which was released by The New England Journal of Medicine in conjunction with Dr. Poordad’s presentation of the data Saturday (April 12) at the International Liver Congress in London. UT Medicine is the clinical practice of the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where Dr. Poordad is a clinical professor of medicine. He is vice president of the Texas Liver Institute in San Antonio.

Interferon previously was the only agent to show effectiveness against hepatitis C, but patients often relapsed and the therapy caused multiple side effects. The new regimen is interferon-free and consists of several agents — ABT-450/ritonavir, ombitasvir, dasabuvir and ribavirin. Twelve weeks after the last dose, no hepatitis C virus was detected in the bloodstream of 91.8 percent of patients who took the pills for 12 weeks. Among patients treated for 24 weeks, 95.9 percent were virus-free 12 weeks after the end of therapy.

“These are out-of-the-ballpark response rates, not on the same planet as interferon,” Dr. Poordad said. “The reason this study is so profound is because interferon is not tolerated nor is it safe in many people with cirrhosis. Many of the patients with cirrhosis in this study were not even eligible to be treated with interferon.”

One of those patients was retired San Antonio anesthesiologist Sergio Buentello, M.D. Diagnosed with hepatitis C infection 11 years ago, Dr. Buentello had treatment with side effects and no cure eight years ago. “My viral count came down, but never to zero,” he said.

When Eric Lawitz, M.D., of the Texas Liver Institute told him of the possibility of treatment with the new therapy, Dr. Buentello said he was skeptical. But as for so many others, the therapy worked.

“I feel very lucky to be living in this time, because I was almost resigned to the idea that I could never be cured,” Dr. Buentello said.

The study examined outcomes in 380 patients at 78 sites, including hospitals and centers in Spain, Germany, England, Canada and the U.S. The biopharmaceutical company AbbVie provided support.

Investigators are cataloging patient blood samples for three years after therapy and so far have noticed no long-term, late relapses, Dr. Poordad said.

“Patients with advanced liver disease can now be cured of their hepatitis with a very well-tolerated and short regimen,” he said.

The combination medication regimen is expected to be on the market as early as the end of 2014 or very early 2015.

 

UT Medicine San Antonio is the clinical practice of the School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio. With more than 700 doctors – all School of Medicine faculty – UT Medicine is the largest medical practice in Central and South Texas. Expertise is in more than 100 medical specialties and subspecialties. Primary care doctors and specialists see patients in private practice at UT Medicine’s flagship clinical home, the Medical Arts & Research Center (MARC), located at 8300 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio 78229. Most major health plans are accepted, and UT Medicine physicians also practice at several local and regional hospitals. Call (210) 450-9000 to schedule an appointment, or visit http://www.UTMedicine.org for a list of clinics and phone numbers.

The Texas Liver Institute’s mission is to set the standard of excellence in care and innovative research in the field of liver disease. The institute is affiliated with The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The physicians are professors and teach at University Hospital of the University Health System and are involved with the liver transplantation program of the University Transplant Center, a partnership of the Health Science Center and the University Health System. For more information, visit http://www.txliver.com/.

SABCS audit shows local symposium’s global impact

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SAN ANTONIO (April 9, 2014) – The audit just came in, and the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium is a resounding success for San Antonio — and for breast cancer treatment worldwide.

In December 2013, more than 7,400 breast cancer oncologists, nurses, researchers and advocates attended the SABCS, sponsored by the Cancer Therapy & Research Center at the UT Health Science Center, the American Association for Cancer Research and Baylor College of Medicine. That does not include exhibitors, sponsors, staff and members of the media, who bumped the attendance up to 7,625.

That’s more than $9 million in economic impact for the San Antonio downtown area alone, using the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau economic impact formula.

Another way to calculate the conference’s impact over the past 36 years is to look at the experts from across the world who travel to San Antonio to share and learn the latest information on breast cancer.

“We have a global reach and, having done this since 1977, we have had a longstanding global impact on the care of patients with breast cancer,” said Ismail Jatoi, M.D., Ph.D., chief of surgical oncology at the Health Science Center.

They come from every continent but Antarctica, and from countries as small as Equatorial Guinea. The questions of diagnosis, access to drugs and how clinical drug trials are run in different countries are important global health issues addressed at SABCS. And in 2014, SABCS will host a developing country forum focusing on those questions faced by oncologists and health care workers treating breast cancer in the developing world.

“The SABCS is the largest breast cancer meeting in the world, and the most important gathering of key opinion leaders in breast cancer research,” Dr. Jatoi said.

 

The Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is one of the elite academic cancer centers in the country to be named a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Designated Cancer Center, and is one of only four in Texas. A leader in developing new drugs to treat cancer, the CTRC Institute for Drug Development (IDD) conducts one of the largest oncology Phase I clinical drug programs in the world, and participates in development of cancer drugs approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. For more information, visit www.ctrc.net.

7th annual Community Service Learning Conference tackles health literacy

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WHAT:

Barry Weiss, M.D., FAAFP, creator of “the Newest Vital Sign,” which uses a nutritional label from an ice cream container to rapidly and accurately measure patients’ health literacy, gives the keynote address at the 7th annual Community Service Learning (CSL) Conference.

The theme of this year’s conference is “A Prescription for Plain Language: Health Literacy.” It is organized by the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Other speakers will cover a range of topics, including using interpreters to communicate effectively with patients and how health literacy can affect medication management.

WHEN:

Thursday, April 3, 2014, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• 9:15 to 10:30 a.m.: Keynote by Dr. Barry Weiss.
• The full conference agenda is here.

WHERE:

Hurd Auditorium, School of Nursing, UT Health Science Center, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio

WHO:

Dr. Barry Weiss is a tenured professor of family and community medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. His research centers on healthy literacy and patient-physician communication.

“The Newest Vital Sign,” developed by Dr. Weiss and colleagues, has been shown to accurately measure patients’ healthy literacy in about three minutes by asking a half-dozen questions about an ice cream nutritional label.

Dr. Weiss authored the American Medical Association’s health literacy manual for clinicians. He is widely published on health literacy and has served as a consultant on the topic to the Institute of Medicine, among many others.

NOTES:

Health Science Center students will present their own CSL projects from throughout the year at a noon panel presentation and a poster session/reception at 5 p.m. in the Texas Star Café, a short walk from the Hurd Auditorium. The conference has reached its attendance capacity, but members of the news media are welcome.

Efforts like those highlighted at the conference have earned the Health Science Center a place on the U.S. President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll since 2009.

 

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, one of the country’s leading health sciences universities, ranks in the top 3 percent of all institutions worldwide receiving National Institutes of Health funding. The university’s schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions and graduate biomedical sciences have produced more than 29,000 graduates. The $765 million operating budget supports eight campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. For more information on the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit www.uthscsa.edu.

New defibrillator prevents cardiac arrest without placing leads into the heart itself

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SAN ANTONIO (March 31, 2014) — A UT Medicine San Antonio cardiologist, Manoj Panday, M.D., implanted a subcutaneous internal cardioverter-defibrillator (S-ICD) into a patient at University Hospital on March 31. The patient, who is at high risk for sudden cardiac arrest, was the first University Health System patient to be treated with this new device. The surgery lasted two hours.

Dr. Panday, professor of medicine, performed two S-ICD implantations in February/March at the South Texas Veterans Health Care System. The first was Feb. 26.

UT Medicine is the clinical practice of the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. University Hospital and the VA Hospital are two of the School of Medicine’s teaching hospitals.

Like other defibrillators, the S-ICD system is a battery-powered device implanted underneath the skin that can save a patient’s life by delivering a shock to the heart. But unlike traditional defibrillators, the electrical lead for the S-ICD is implanted within the chest wall, eliminating the need to screw one or more leads into the heart itself.

“This reduces the risk of puncturing the heart or lungs, or injuring blood vessels through which we have had to track the leads,” Dr. Panday said. “This reduces the patient’s risk of contracting a systemic infection, such as endocarditis. It is advantageous that the new approach does not involve touching the heart or blood vessels.”

Dr. Panday, with the UT Medicine cardiology practice, is one of the first physicians in South Texas to be trained on how to implant this device. It is new technology and a new procedure that is not done yet in many parts of the country.

The S-ICD system, made by Boston Scientific, only recently gained U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for treating patients who are at high risk for sudden cardiac death.

“The gentleman treated at University Hospital has a cardiomyopathy (weakening of the heart muscle with a low ejection fraction, which is a measure of heart pump function),” Dr. Panday said. “The patient has scarring in the heart that puts him at risk of developing ventricular fibrillation (quivering of the heart without organized electrical activity). This type of rhythm results in sudden death if not shocked quickly. Unfortunately, these patients often do not survive their first episode.”

The device detects abnormal heart rhythms and can quickly deliver an 80 Joule shock to restore a normal rhythm. The device’s generator is implanted under the skin and contains a battery that generally lasts five years and can be replaced with an outpatient procedure.

This breakthrough technology marks the first time that an implantable device can prevent sudden cardiac arrest and save someone’s life without having a lead implanted inside the vascular space and heart.

“With a defibrillator implanted, survival can be increased by 30 percent in high-risk patients,” Dr. Panday said. “There is less overall procedural risk to the patient, but there is similar life-saving benefit with the S-ICD.”

 

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, one of the country’s leading health sciences universities, ranks in the top 3 percent of all institutions worldwide receiving National Institutes of Health funding. The university’s schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions and graduate biomedical sciences have produced more than 29,000 graduates. The $765 million operating budget supports eight campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. For more information on the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit www.uthscsa.edu.

Nursing Dean Eileen T. Breslin, Ph.D., assumes presidency of AACN

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SAN ANTONIO (March 26, 2014) – Eileen T. Breslin, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, dean of the School of Nursing at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, assumed the presidency of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing on March 24 at the AACN’s 2014 Spring Business Meeting in Washington, D.C.

“Preparing the next generation of nurses to be thought leaders is critical to ushering in meaningful change at the highest levels of health care and higher education,” Dr. Breslin said. “As AACN’s president, I am looking forward to answering this call by working closely with member schools, staff and all stakeholders to shape future AACN initiatives that advance leadership in nursing education, research and practice.”

Dr. Breslin, who also serves as the Patty L. Hawken Nursing Endowed Professor, joined the UT Health Science Center as dean in April 2008. Since then, she has focused on addressing the national nursing shortage, updating and improving the School of Nursing curricula, and improving the quality of care in South Texas through evidence-based practice and community partnerships.

Since arriving in San Antonio, she has created and attained accreditation for a Doctor of Nursing Practice Program. This doctoral degree is designed to prepare nursing leaders for the highest level of professional nursing practice in one of three program tracks: nurse practitioner leadership, public health nurse leadership and executive administrative management.

In addition, Dr. Breslin led a community-supported effort to fund the nursing school’s Center for Simulation Innovation, a $3.8 million, 7,281-square-foot simulation center with a mini-hospital and home health care setting. In the center, students can appraise and respond to high-fidelity manikins with simulated medical scenarios. The students and their professors review their responses after the realistic, stressful simulations.

During her time at the Health Science Center, Dean Breslin created a Clinical Nurse Leader Program and has been instrumental in raising philanthropic donations which have allowed her to recruit outstanding professors from across the country.

She is a fellow of both the American Academy of Nursing and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. She is a Distinguished Practitioner in Nursing by the National Academics of Practice and has served on the National Advisory Council for Nursing Education.

Dean Breslin earned her Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. She earned her master’s degree in maternal-newborn nursing from the University of Arizona. She received her bachelor of science in nursing from Northern Arizona University and her nurse practitioner certification from the University of New Mexico.

For the AACN, Dr. Breslin has served as president-elect, treasurer, member-at-large and a member of the Government Affairs Committee. She also represented AACN at the American Nurses Association Congress on Nursing Practice and Economics, as a member of the AACN/Department of Veterans Affairs Liaison Committee, on a task force that issued AACN’s 1999 position statement titled “Violence as a Public Health Problem,” and as a state grassroots liaison.

The AACN is the national voice for university and four-year college education programs in nursing. Representing more than 740 member schools of nursing at public and private institutions nationwide, AACN’s educational, research, governmental advocacy, data collection, publications and other programs work to establish quality standards for baccalaureate- and graduate-degree nursing education, assist deans and directors to implement these standards, influence the nursing profession to improve health care, and promote public support of baccalaureate and graduate nursing education, research and practice. www.aacn.nche.edu

 

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, one of the country’s leading health sciences universities, ranks in the top 3 percent of all institutions worldwide receiving National Institutes of Health funding. The university’s schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions and graduate biomedical sciences have produced more than 29,000 graduates. The $765 million operating budget supports eight campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. For more information on the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit www.uthscsa.edu.

Doctors to make house calls on students

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UT Health Science Center faculty to visit local schools for Doctors’ Day

WHAT:

Every minute of every hour, a medical doctor is answering the call of patient care and fulfilling the Physician’s Oath of Hippocrates. From providing therapies to counseling, and from testing theories of disease to developing new treatments, physicians and other professionals provide an essential service to humanity. To celebrate this call and inspire students to follow medicine and science career paths, faculty members from the School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio are heading to schools throughout the city for National Doctors’ Day. They will share their personal stories and watch the spark grow in young people.

WHEN:

School visits will occur Wednesday, March 26, throughout the day. A media opportunity is offered starting at 9:30 a.m. with William L. Henrich, M.D., MACP, president of the Health Science Center, and Francisco González-Scarano, M.D., dean of the School of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs.

WHERE:

Health Careers High School, 4646 Hamilton Wolfe, San Antonio, Texas 78229.

WHO:

Dr. Henrich is a nephrologist and Dr. González is a neurologist. Both leaders have extensive lists of publications from their fields in scientific journals.

This year’s speakers represent a wide range of specialties, including neurosurgery, ophthalmology, emergency medicine, radiology, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, neurology, gastroenterology, cardiology, psychiatry, family medicine, otolaryngology, orthopaedics, nephrology and microbiology. Most of the speakers see patients of UT Medicine San Antonio, the clinical practice of the School of Medicine.

Complete list of UT Health Science Center speakers at local schools for Doctor’s Day:

Faculty Name, Department, School Visiting on March 26

Carmelito Arkangel, M.D., Emergency Medicine
School Visiting: John Jay Science & Engineering Academy

Jodi Gonzalez Arnold, Ph.D., Psychiatry
School Visiting: Stevens High School

Chatchawin Assanasen, M.D., Pediatrics-Hematology/Oncology
School Visiting: East Central High School

Philip Chen, M.D. , Otolaryngology-Head Neck Surgery
School Visiting: Judson High School

N. Carol Dornbluth, M.D., Radiology
School Visiting: Churchill High School

Donald Dudley, M.D., Obstetrics & Gynecology
School Visiting: Antonian College Preparatory High School

Marijan Gillard, M.D., Family & Community Medicine
School Visiting: Brennan High School

Francisco González-Scarano, M.D., Neurology/Dean, School of Medicine
School Visiting: Health Careers High School

Glenn Gross, M.D., Medicine-Gastroenterology
School Visiting: Whittier Middle School

Karen Hentschel-Franks, D.O., Pediatrics-Pulmonology
School Visiting: St. Anthony Catholic High School

William L. Henrich, M.D., Medicine-Nephrology/President
School Visiting: Health Careers High School

Haneme Idrizi, M.D., Pediatrics-Inpatient Pediatrics
School Visiting: STEM Academy – Lee High School

Daniel Johnson, M.D., Ophthalmology
School Visiting: Fox Tech High School Health Professions Magnet

Sarah Lapey, M.D., Medicine-Gastroenterology
School Visiting: Warren High School

Tisha Lunsford, M.D., Medicine-Gastroenterology
School Visiting: Taft High School

Darlene Metter, M.D., Radiology
School Visiting: Brennan High School

Travis Murray, M.D., Orthopaedics
School Visiting: San Antonio Christian School

Pamela Otto, M.D., Radiology
School Visiting: Brandeis High School

Sara Pastoor, M.D., Family & Community Medicine
School Visiting: McNair Middle School

Sophia Pina, Ph.D., Microbiology & Immunology
School Visiting: Marshall High School

Sophia Pina, Ph.D. (second visit), Microbiology & Immunology
School Visiting: Providence Catholic School

Carlos Rosende, M.D., Ophthalmology
School Visiting: Clark High School

Ali Seifi, M.D., Neurosurgery
School Visiting: Basis San Antonio

Shafqat Shah, M.D., Pediatrics-Hematology/Oncology
School Visiting: Burbank High School

Dina R. Tom, M.D., Pediatrics-Inpatient Pediatrics
School Visiting: Young Women’s Leadership Academy

Hugh White, M.D., Radiology
School Visiting: Marshall High School

 

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, one of the country’s leading health sciences universities, ranks in the top 3 percent of all institutions worldwide receiving National Institutes of Health funding. The university’s schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions and graduate biomedical sciences have produced more than 29,000 graduates. The $765 million operating budget supports eight campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. For more information on the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit www.uthscsa.edu.