During Medical Student Grand Rounds at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in October, Geisel students shared their research on building or repairing human tissues, sudden sensorineural hearing loss, and the impact of preoperative depressive risk factors on spinal surgery outcomes.
Here are summaries of their presentations:
Jewelia Durant MED’26: Introduction to Tissue Engineering Topic Through a Proof-of-Concept Skin Substitute
"Tissue engineering is a fast-growing area of medical research that aims to build or repair human tissues using a mix of biology, engineering, and chemistry. This field could lead to major improvements in how we treat many diseases, from creating new organs to helping doctors choose better treatments for patients.
In this presentation, the basics of tissue engineering were introduced by demonstration of how to build a lab-made skin substitute, discussing a first draft (proof-of-concept) version of a two-layer skin substitute made from patient-derived cells."
Kiran Ganga MED’28: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss
“Sudden sensorineural hearing loss is a rapid loss of hearing in one ear, often occurring without pain or warning, is one of the true otological emergencies. Most cases are idiopathic, and the deficit arises from the inner ear. While the standard treatment is high-dose corticosteroids, ideally initiated within 72 hours of onset, many patients experience only partial or no recovery. When steroid therapy fails, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is sometimes offered as an adjunctive option; however, its effectiveness is debated in the literature. Our work seeks to clarify the role of HBOT in treating sudden sensorineural hearing loss.
HBOT involves breathing 100 percent oxygen in a pressurized chamber which increases the amount of oxygen dissolved in blood. A typical HBOT course includes daily 90-minute sessions over several weeks. This therapy allows oxygen to reach tissues even in areas with limited blood flow and is generally well tolerated. The proposed mechanisms of benefit include improved microvascular perfusion, reduction of inflammation, and promotion of cellular repair.
Our work focuses on analyzing data from Dartmouth Hitchcock as well as a multicenter registry encompassing more than 200 patients. There was overall a measurable hearing improvement after HBOT, particularly when treatment began within two weeks of symptom onset and was combined with corticosteroids. Improvements were also noted in word recognition scores, indicating better speech understanding in addition to sound detection. Interestingly, the improvement pattern appeared gradual, unlike the more immediate responses typically seen in other conditions treated with HBOT.”
Tejas Purimetla MED’27: Spinal Surgery Outcomes Based on Zung Depression Scores
“Currently, there is a high degree of variability regarding the effectiveness of spine surgery in improving various pain/depression self-reported patient outcomes. Some studies have shown that most patients depressed preoperatively experienced a robust increase in mental well-being postoperatively. More specifically, a significant improvement from baseline was observed in Zung Depression Scores. On the other hand, it has been reported that Zung SDS (Self-Rating Depressions Scale) and SF-12 MCS did not change appreciably after lumbar decompression in depressed vs. non-depressed cohorts. However, the exact mechanisms linking back pain and poor mental health symptoms are not clear. Therefore, the results of previous studies do not elucidate whether the improvement or even the lack of change in depressive symptoms leads to a postoperative improvement in back pain or whether it is the improvement in physical back pain that improves mental well-being.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of preoperative depressive risk factors, as evaluated by the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, on a variety of clinical outcomes after cervical and lumbar decompression procedures.”
