Perelman School of Medicine

Penn Study Shows Acupuncture Provides Significant Quality of Life Improvements for Breast Cancer Patients

Use of electroacupuncture (EA) – a form of acupuncture where a small electric current is passed between pairs of acupuncture needles – produces significant improvements in fatigue, anxiety and depression in as little as eight weeks for early stage breast cancer patients experiencing joint pain related to the use of aromatase inhibitors (AIs) to treat breast cancer.

Katie Delach

Penn Team Makes Cancer Glow to Improve Surgical Outcomes

The best way to cure most cases of cancer is to surgically remove the tumor. The Achilles heel of this approach, however, is that the surgeon may fail to extract the entire tumor, leading to a local recurrence.

Katherine Unger Baillie, Lee-Ann Donegan

Atomic Structure of Key Muscle Component Revealed in Penn Study

Actin is the most abundant protein in the body, and when you look more closely at its fundamental role in life, it’s easy to see why. It is the basis of most movement in the body, and all cells and components within them have the capacity to move: muscle contracting, heart beating, blood clotting, and nerve cells communicating, among many other functions.

Karen Kreeger

Penn Medicine Study: Liver Transplant Patients Who Receive Organs from Living Donors More Likely to Survive than Those Who Receive Organs from Deceased Donors

Research derived from early national experience of liver transplantation has shown that deceased donor liver transplants offered recipients better survival rates than living donor liver transplants, making them the preferred method of transplantation for most physicians. Now, the first data-driven study in over a decade disputes this notion.

Lee-Ann Donegan



In the News


Fox 29 (Philadelphia)

Cannabis reclassification could be game-changer for U.S. drug policy

Michael Cirigliano of the Perelman School of Medicine says that marijuana deserves to be removed from the same category as LSD, heroin, and fentanyl.

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The Washington Post

Americans are sleeping more than ever. See how you compare

Mathias Basner of the Perelman School of Medicine says that work and traveling are the major sleep killers, with the majority of traveling being commuting to and from work.

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Newsweek

Man does DNA test, not prepared for what comes back ‘unusually high’

César de la Fuente of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and Perelman School of Medicine says that Neanderthal DNA provides insights into human evolution, population dynamics, and genetic adaptations, including correlations with traits such as immunity and susceptibility to diseases.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Cardiac arrest recoveries are great stories, but they’re rare. We can fix that

In an opinion essay, Raina Merchant of the Perelman School of Medicine says that low survival rates for cardiac arrest can be improved by increasing rates of CPR.

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Women’s Health

How does fat leave the body? Experts explain the weight loss process

Colleen Tewksbury of the School of Nursing and Perelman School of Medicine says that waist circumference is a more accessible and potentially more helpful measure for fat loss than stepping on a scale.

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