PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL MEDICINE® NEWS BUREAU
Contact: Leonard N. Karp
lkarp@philadelphiamedicine.com
215-735-3989
February 25, 2005

For immediate release:

In this month's issue:

1. Jefferson Live Webcast Will Bring Visitors into Virtual World of Computer Assisted Partial Knee Replacement
2. Father of the Breast Cancer Drug Tamoxifen Joins Fox Chase Cancer Center
3. University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Expands Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program

Editors note: Research by Philadelphia International Medicine physicians may lead to new ways to treat some of our most challenging diseases. Below are some examples from our hospitals.

Jefferson Live Webcast Will Bring Visitors into Virtual World of Computer Assisted Partial Knee Replacement

Philadelphia – Virtual reality is aiding orthopedic surgeons at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in replacing arthritis-stricken single compartments of a knee without the patient having to endure a long surgery and recovery involved with a total knee replacement.

Computer assisted partial knee replacement makes it easier for orthopedic surgeons to replace diseased sections of the knee without performing a total knee replacement, said Peter F. Sharkey, MD, associate professor of Orthopedic Surgery, Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.

“Many doctors are reluctant to do one compartment of the knee because most people have arthritis in more than one section or throughout the entire knee,” said Dr. Sharkey of the Rothman Institute at Jefferson. “As a result, surgeons typically just do atotal knee replacement.”

Patients will have the chance to see this minimally-invasive procedure first-hand when Thomas Jefferson University Hospital hosts a webcast of the computer assisted partial knee replacement on Wednesday, March 30, at 4:30 p.m. Please contact Lucia Rosenberg, director of PIM’s Institute of Education, at lrosenberg@philadelphiamedicine.com, or 215-735-3269, for more information about enrolling to view the Webcast.

Dr. Sharkey will perform the procedure, which will be narrated by Richard Rothman, MD, director of the Rothman Institute at Jefferson, and James Edwards Professor and chair of Orthopedic Surgery, Jefferson.

Traditionally, surgeons perform a total knee replacement when one or two of three compartments of the knee -- the medial, the lateral and the patellofemoral -- are stricken with arthritis, Dr. Sharkey explained. Typically, arthritis develops in the medial (the inner joint surfaces of the long bones) or the patella femoral (the joint between the undersurface of the kneecap and the femur) compartments.

“We haven’t been able to do a selective implant in more than one compartment in the past, due to a lack of implants and instrumentation issues,” he said. With computer guidance, however, the surgeon can create a virtual and detailed image of the knee on a computer screen in order to place the implant precisely in a single compartment. “You get a full-scale picture of the knee,” Dr. Sharkey noted.

Computer-assisted surgery helps the surgeon lay the joint implant on the patient’s bones with greater precision, he said. Computer assisted partial knee replacement also utilizes specially designed implants made to resurface one side of the knee joint. The post-surgical recovery time for computer assisted partial knee replacement is about half the time of recovery for a total knee replacement--three weeks, instead of the normal six weeks.

U.S. News & World Report has ranked Thomas Jefferson University Hospital among the top hospitals in the nation for orthopedics. In comparison to other medical centers around the nation with leading orthopedic programs, a high volume of knee replacement procedures is performed at Jefferson Hospital-- a total of approximately 2,000 annually. As a result, Jefferson Hospital has one of the shortest lengths of stay and lowest complication and readmission rates for the procedure.

For more than a quarter of a century, Dr. Richard Rothman has dedicated his career to research, teaching and surgery. He has also worked toward realizing his vision of an institute, dedicated to the treatment of skeletal diseases, which is performing among the largest number of joint replacements in the nation. Dr. Rothman is regularly listed by national publications as one of the premier orthopedic surgeons, as well as one of the best doctors in the country. He has received numerous awards for his research contributions to the study of orthopedics, including FDA approved studies on hip replacements and arthritis of the hip. Dr. Rothman has also published extensively on his findings, and has 13 textbooks and more than 200 original research papers to his credit.

Dr. Sharkey is an internationally recognized expert and leader in the field of complex hip and knee replacement, revision joint surgery and joint reconstruction. He is director of the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Orthopedic Surgery Residency Program and is a member of the American Orthopedic Association, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and the Hip Society. He is committed to orthopedic education and academic medicine and has published numerous scientific articles on joint replacement.

The Webcast is approved for AMA PRA Category 1 credit. Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, as a member of the Consortium for Academic Continuing Medical Education, is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Father of the Breast Cancer Drug Tamoxifen Joins Fox Chase Cancer Center

V. Craig Jordan, OBE, PhD, DSc, has joined Fox Chase Cancer Center’s division of medical science as vice president and scientific director for the medical science division. Dr. Jordan also holds the new Alfred G. Knudson Jr., MD, PhD, Chair in Cancer Research. He served on the faculty of Northwestern University in Chicago since 1993 before moving his laboratory to Philadelphia this month.

Dr. Jordan is a pharmacologist known as the “father” of the breast cancer drug tamoxifen. His published studies of tamoxifen and other selective estrogen-receptor modulators—called “designer estrogens”—have made him one of the top 20 most-cited breast cancer researchers over the past decade.

“We are extraordinarily pleased to welcome Dr. Jordan to our faculty,” said Fox Chase president Robert C. Young, MD. “Dr. Jordan was a major force in the development of tamoxifen in the 1970s and it has subsequently become a mainstay for treating women with breast cancer. Just six years ago, tamoxifen was also shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer by 40 percent among high-risk women.”

Dr. Jordan’s wife, Monica Morrow, MD, an internationally recognized breast cancer surgeon, joined Fox Chase in August as chair of surgical oncology—one of just a few women across the nation to chair a surgery department. She holds the Center’s G. Willing “Wing” Pepper Chair in Cancer Research.

Dr. Young continued, “Dr. Morrow was a principal investigator on the breast cancer prevention trial involving tamoxifen. This illustrates how Dr. Jordan with his preclinical work and Dr. Morrow with her clinical research work together to accelerate the translation of research from the lab to treatment and prevention.”

Before joining Fox Chase, Dr. Jordan was the Diana, Princess of Wales Professor of Cancer Research, professor of cancer pharmacology and director of the Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Research Program at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern. He was principal investigator for the cancer center’s SPORE grant for breast cancer. He was also professor of molecular pharmacology and biological chemistry and professor of medicine at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

Dr. Jordan has been studying the effects of tamoxifen for his entire career. It originally was studied as a contraceptive but turned out to have the opposite effect. Dr. Jordan’s interest was in this “anti-estrogen” drug’s possible effects on breast cancer, known to be promoted by the hormone estrogen in many cases.

He was the first scientist to focus attention on tamoxifen’s anticancer properties and its ability to prevent breast cancer in laboratory mice. His pioneering work guided the evolution from preclinical lab studies to clinical research on the drug, which for the past 30 years has been an established treatment both for advanced breast cancer and as follow-up, or adjuvant, treatment to prevent patients from developing a cancer in the second breast. More recently, he has been involved in developing a second estrogen-modulating compound, the osteoporosis drug raloxifene, now being tested as a preventive agent for breast cancer.

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Expands Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program

The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Tai Sophia Institute for the Applied Healing Arts of Laurel, MD, have signed an affiliation agreement to collaborate on education, research and clinical activities in complementary and alternative medicine.

Three initiatives relating to medical education, clinical activities, and the monitoring of the quality of herbal medicines and herbal products are initial targets for the program. The initiatives will include the creation of a Master’s Degree in Complementary and Alternative Medicine, to be offered by the Tai Sophia Institute and developed in collaboration with Penn School of Medicine faculty. “This degree program is one of the first of its kind in the nation,” states Alfred P. Fishman, MD, senior associate dean for program development at Penn’s School of Medicine and co-director of the collaboration. “It will afford a solid background for Penn’s medical and nursing students in their understanding of alternative healing arts.”

A second initiative will be the creation of an “Optimal Healing Environment” at the Presbyterian Medical Center. This program will be developed by the Division of Cardiology at Penn’s Presbyterian Medical Center and the Tai Sophia Institute and will integrate Complementary/Alternative Medicine into conventional cardiac care.

The third part of the collaboration will consist of the development of postgraduate programs, and programs in continuing education. One program currently under development will provide physicians with ready access to clinically important information about herbal medicines and promote the use of on-line herbal databases. The School of Medicine’s highly rated Continuing Medical Education Program (CME), which has recently received re-accreditation with a commendation and rating of exceptional by the Accreditation Council for CME, will play an important role in this phase of the collaboration.

The Tai Sophia Institute is a graduate school currently celebrating its 30th anniversary. The Institute offers graduate degree programs in acupuncture, botanical healing and applied healing arts. The Institute has been involved in the education of 320 full-time graduate students from all over the United States and six foreign countries. Approximately 700 graduates of the Institute actively practice acupuncture and other healing arts throughout the country.

Dr. Fishman and Robert M. Duggan, MA, MAc, president of the Tai Sophia Institute are co-directing the program and are aided by a planning committee comprised of experts from both institutions.

Philadelphia International Medicine is an organization that provides medical and patient support services to international patients. It also provides continuing medical education and health care training and education to international physicians, administrators and other practitioners. As the international department of several Philadelphia-area hospitals, international patients gain access to physicians and hospitals rated among the best in the world through one telephone call to PIM. You can reach PIM by calling 1-215-735-3575; fax, 1-215-790-1267; or e-mail, physicians@philadelphiamedicine.com . You can find out more about PIM through its Website at www.philadelphiamedicine.com .