VUMC News and Communications

A common ingredient in over-the-counter decongestants -- pseudoephedrine -- may increase blood pressure and the risk of life-threatening or disabling strokes in susceptible patients, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have reported.

Doctors at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital have found a whole new use for the popular erectile dysfunction drug Viagra. Sildenafil, as it is called by its more anonymous chemical name, may have the power to save babies.

By all accounts, Don Matl was not expected to survive his second bout with melanoma in 1998. He was given less than a 5 percent chance. But he lived.Another recurrence in 2001 yielded a similar inference ó but again he persevered. Now Matl knows why he beat the odds.

Do dyslexia, ADHD and speech and language disorders occur jointly in some children because of a shared genetic cause? Bruce Pennington, Ph.D., a world-renowned geneticist, will address this question in a lecture in the series on development and developmental disabilities on Thursday, April 8, at 4 p.m. at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development.

Vaccines, drugs, diagnostic devices and medical surveillance are all crucial tools in the fight against bioterrorism and emerging infectious disease, but experts say they are not enough, and Congress has asked a group of national experts in the field, which includes the National Center for Emergency Preparedness (NCEP), housed at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, to target new ways to increase the level of personnel preparedness.

Vanderbilt Medical Center will expand its LifeFlight helicopter air ambulance program by adding a base in Lebanon, Tennessee, and purchasing three new state-of-the-art helicopters at a cost of $5.4 million each.