News

NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center has officially launched the Center for Acute Respiratory Failure, which offers expertise in using lung bypass technology to help adult patients whose lungs are rapidly shutting down. Already one of the largest centers in the world for respiratory as well as cardiac failure in adults, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia is expanding further due to its new ECMO program.

Daniel Brodie, MD, and Matthew Bacchetta, MD, Co-directors of the Center for Respiratory Failure at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, have published an important review article about ECMO in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article details how extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) can take over the function of the lungs in adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) to give severely damaged lungs time to rest and heal.

Funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), this international, multicenter clinical study is evaluating the effectiveness of thymus gland removal (thymectomy) as a treatment for myasthenia gravis. The trial commenced in 2006 and has an expected completion date of August 2010. Joshua Sonett, MD, Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Columbia, is the surgeon for the Columbia site. Alfred Jaretzki, MD, Professor Emeritus of Clinical Surgery at Columbia is a member of the trial's Executive Committee, and in this role is an author on two articles regarding the study.