Treating epilepsy more effectively yields high individual, social and economic returns

Dr Emma Foster and A/Prof Zanfina Ademi explain how treating
epilepsy greatly reduces its health economic burden. See video

New data from Monash University reveal the enormous cost of epilepsy in Australia – costing more than 14,000 excess deaths up to age 70 years, $32.4 billion of lost gross domestic product (GDP), and $4.1 billion in direct healthcare costs. 

The researchers also showed that a 10% improvement in the treatment of seizures in patients with the disease would save the economy a staggering $1.1 billion in direct health care costs and A$7.8 billion in GDP over the working lifetime of people with epilepsy.

20-26 Oct 2020 Central Clinical School publications

Dr Maithili Sashindranath is senior author on a study looking at
at different stroke mouse models for improved stroke therapies.
You can follow @dr_maithili on Twitter

Recent publications featuring research as notified by PubMed during 20-26 October 2020 from Central Clinical School affiliated researchers in the following departments. The below is not a comprehensive list:

• Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine
• Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
  
• Australian Centre for Blood Diseases
• Immunology and Pathology
  
• Infectious Diseases
• Medicine - Alfred & Peninsula
• Melbourne Sexual Health Centre
• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry

Congratulations to Heart Foundation winner Jessica O'Brien!

Dr Jessica O'Brien

The sub-Faculty of Translational Medicine and Public Health at the Alfred precinct is celebrating a flurry of funding from Heart Foundation Australia, who released details on their latest grant recipients this week. Fifty-three projects worth $13.1 million, all investigating the causes, treatment and prevention of heart disease, stroke and related disorders were announced. Congratulations to all of our very worthy winners! See story.

Cardiologist and PhD student at the Central Clinical School, Dr Jessica O’Brien, received an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award for her project Quantifying myocardial inflammation in acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. This grant is focused on capacity building and increasing Indigenous representation at all levels of research.

 

Jessica will use cardiac MRI to identify myocardial inflammation in acute rheumatic fever (ARF) with the aim of improving diagnostic accuracy and predicting which patients are most likely to progress to rheumatic heart disease (RHD). Improving these would ensure that antibiotic prophylaxis and follow-up can be optimised accordingly with the overall goal of helping to reduce RHD prevalence and severity.

She says, "Because of my background, I have always been interested in Indigenous health, but it wasn't until I started physician training that I saw the extent of the disparity in health outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. One of the many contributors to this is the disproportionately low numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health professionals and researchers."

Jessica is supervised by Dr Andrew Taylor in the Department of Diabetes.

See more: 

• Sub-Faculty of Translational Medicine and Public Health winners story
• All Monash University Heart Foundation winners story
  

Autoimmune encephalitis: When your body attacks your brain, and people think you’re going mad

It’s described as feeling like your brain is on fire. People with autoimmune encephalitis (AE) are often misdiagnosed as suffering from a psychiatric illness, delirium or dementia. The condition can mimic many other diseases, and hence there can be delays in diagnosis resulting in brain damage and a largely poor prognosis. The patients can be young or old, and the burden of misdiagnosed, late diagnosed or wrongly diagnosed disease can be high.

How to keep COVID waves small

Local businesses have to give explicit instructions on
wearing masks to cover your mouth and nose.

A Monash study reveals Stage 4 started too late to control COVID-19 community transmission, and recommends an early warning system and national mandatory mask wearing.

Associate Professor Lei Zhang, Head of the Artificial Intelligence and Modelling in Epidemiology Program at Monash University’s Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, studied Victoria’s first and second waves of COVID-19 infections and found the Stage 3 restrictions and mandatory mask wearing were introduced too late and led to the prolonged Stage 4 lockdowns.

New drug hope for migraine sufferers

A recent study by Monash University neuroscientists has shown the effectiveness of a migraine drug called Erenumab (Aimovig) for chronic sufferers, which sadly remains unaffordable for most patients.

Involving 170 patients living with frequent, severe migraine attacks (chronic migraine) across three specialist headache centres in Australia, findings revealed that after being prescribed Erenumab, after three months 58.8 per cent had at least halved the number of ‘migraine attack’ days each month. This result was maintained at six months, with 50 per cent experiencing half the number of days with migraine that they had at baseline.

13-19 Oct 2020 Central Clinical School publications

Case report on two patients with donor 
derived AML. Image: Wikipedia

Recent publications featuring research as notified by PubMed during 13-19 October 2020 from Central Clinical School affiliated researchers in the following departments. The below is not a comprehensive list:

• Australian Centre for Blood Diseases
• Infectious Diseases
• Medicine - Alfred & Peninsula
• Melbourne Sexual Health Centre
• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry