Eli Diamond, MD
Vaios Hatzoglou, MD
Eli Diamond, MD
Vaios Hatzoglou, MD
Eli L. Diamond, MD, and Vaios Hatzoglou, MD were awarded a $43,000 grant for their project, “A Clinical, Structural, and Functional Neuroimaging Study of Cognition in Erdheim-Chester Disease.” The purpose of this study is to understand the neurological/cognitive effects of ECD.
Amount: 43,000 USD
Final Report
This study examined ECD patients without neurologic involvement by ECD and without prior therapies or medical history that could introduce independent injury to cognition or abnormal brain imaging. Participants underwent detailed cognitive testing, structural MRI looking at the integrity of the white matter and overall brain volumes, as well as functional MRI to evaluate the connectivity of brain networks. All patients were compared to age-matched healthy controls.
Ten patients were evaluated. Striking data was seen, supporting the frequent informal observation that ECD patients struggle with thinking and memory even when they do not have a neurologic infiltration of their ECD. The MRI results were equally striking, namely that the ECD patients had dramatically reduced integrity of their white matter compared to controls. When looking at overall brain volumes, there was also a decrease in the patients compared to controls. The functional MRI results were more dramatic. There were abnormalities of functional networks of memory and attention in the patients compared to controls. Publication of the acquired data is expected.
Three grants in 2015 were awarded to learn more about ECD.
- Filip Janku, MD, PhD and Abdel-Wahab, MD were awarded a $50,000 grant for their project, “Understanding and targeting novel molecular alterations in Erdheim-Chester Disease without the BRAFV600E mutation.” The purpose of this study is to discover treatable mutations found in BRAF-negative ECD patients and test in the lab which treatments will most likely work best for these patients.
- Eli Diamond, MD and Vaios Hatzoglou, MD were awarded a $43,000 grant for their project, “A Clinical, Structural, and Functional Neuroimaging Study of Cognition in Erdheim-Chester Disease.” The purpose of this study is to understand the neurological/cognitive effects of ECD.
- Marina Ferrarini, MD and Lorenzo Dagna, MD were awarded $50,000 for their project, “Tailoring Treatment for Erdheim-Chester Disease”. The Ferrarini and Dagna study focuses on understanding how malignant cells in ECD patients accumulate and interact with neighboring normal cells to fuel the disease, causing lesions and tumors to form. With this understanding, the discovery of a treatment strategy that can interrupt the processes, stopping the disease from progressing, may be possible.