News Briefs

Students’ Ranking Rises on Dental Branch Board Exam

The ranking of fourth-year students at The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston who took Part II of the Dental National Board Examination in December rose to 19th out of 50 schools, up from the previous year’s ranking of 37th. The students scored in the highest quintile in the subject areas of oral surgery and oral pathology.

“I congratulate the efforts of both the students and faculty who worked to improve our national ranking among the dental schools through curricular changes,” said Interim Dean Catherine Flaitz, D.D.S.

Study Focuses on Type 2 Diabetes in Children

Patrick G. Brosnan, M.D., professor of pediatrics and chief of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology in The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, is a co-investigator in a recently started study that focuses on what treatment is most effective for children and teens with type 2 diabetes. Nationally, 750 patients will be recruited at 12 sites for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) study.

Baylor College of Medicine and the UT Medical School will recruit Houston-area patients between the ages of 10 and 17 for the local part of the study. Morey Haymond, M.D., professor of pediatrics and a researcher at the Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor and Texas Children’s Hospital, is principal investigator of the local study.

Participants will be assigned randomly to one of three treatment groups to be followed for five years. The study will focus both on what treatment keeps glucose levels normal for the longest time and what works best at preventing complications.

Type 2 diabetes in children was uncommon as recently as 1995, but children now make up more than 30 percent of new cases of the disease.

To be eligible for the study, a patient must be between 10 and 17 with a confirmed diagnosis of type 2 diabetes within the past two years. For more information, call (832) 822-1006.