The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has awarded Weill Cornell Medical College a $2 million grant over the next five years to fund an Edward R. Roybal Center for Research on Applied Gerontology, one of 12 such centers nationally. The grant will create the Cornell-Columbia Translational Research Institute on Pain in Later Life (TRIPLL), a multi-institutional and interdisciplinary collaboration focused on implementing innovative strategies for improving pain management among older adults.

Weill Cornell Institute for Geriatric Psychiatry at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Westchester Division and Westchester County today announced a major initiative designed to develop new methods to recognize and fight depression in older adults living in Westchester.

Garlic, recognized for its healing powers in ancient times, is now being rediscovered by medical scientists, who have new evidence of its efficacy against cancer and heart disease. Dr. Richard Rivlin, of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, is guest co-editor of a special March peer-reviewed supplemental issue to The Journal of Nutrition. The issue comprises 35 articles representing the latest research on garlic -- findings that were first presented at a symposium held last year at Georgetown University.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) involving nearly 17,000 U.S. smokers confirms that women are twice as likely to develop lung cancer as men. Paradoxically, the new findings also suggest that women are more likely than men to survive the disease, should it arise. The results of this international, multicenter study -- led by Dr. Claudia Henschke of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City -- could have important lessons for public health efforts aimed at reducing deaths due to smoking.

Smokers and former smokers should be screened for lung cancer even if they don't have symptoms, according to a new study led by physician-scientists at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The findings, based on data from the largest clinical trial of lung-cancer computed tomography (CT) screening ever conducted, represent the first time tumor size and lung cancer stage have been linked in an asymptomatic population. Results of the study were published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

A new radiation therapy for prostate cancer -- Cesium-131 brachytherapy -- has fewer side effects than other treatments. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center is the only hospital in the Northeast to offer the new therapy. Brachytherapy involves the implantation of radioactive seeds into the tumor site. Radiation kills or arrests the growth of the cancer with minimal damage to healthy tissue. This helps prevent incontinence and preserve the nerves that allow for erection.

Through a novel use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers at the Columbia Presbyterian Center of New York Presbyterian Hospital have provided evidence of two distinct memory decline patterns in the elderly. In the future clinicians hope to use this technique to diagnose patients in the very early stages of Alzheimer's disease and implement early intervention strategies to slow the condition's progression.

A new combination of drug treatment and psychotherapy is much more effective than either medication or therapy alone for treating chronic depression, according to preliminary results presented today at the 1999 annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.