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Monthly Archives :

April 2018

From What-if to Widely Available – A Proposed Path for Tissue Engineered Vascular Grafts
 From What-if to Widely Available – A Proposed Path for Tissue Engineered Vascular Grafts 150 150 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller

What if you could utilize tissue engineering, imaging and 3D printing technologies to bring the benefits of a tissue engineered vascular graft to every child who needs one? Children born with a single ventricle heart defect undergo a series of surgeries and procedures to reroute the blood flow through their heart. The Fontan operation is…

Is Caregiver Education About Sickle Cell Trait Effective?
 Is Caregiver Education About Sickle Cell Trait Effective? 1024 575 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller
Color photo of Black father holding infant on shoulder in front of nursery background with clouds on the wall

Researchers evaluate the standardized education in Ohio to determine if it achieves high caregiver knowledge. Despite universal newborn screening that detects the presence of sickle cell trait (SCT), only 16 percent of Americans with SCT know their status. To address this issue, in Ohio, in-person education is offered to caregivers of referred infants with SCT.…

How Can We Optimize Fertility Related Discussions With Male Survivors of Childhood Cancer?
 How Can We Optimize Fertility Related Discussions With Male Survivors of Childhood Cancer? 150 150 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller

A recent study suggests that fertility is a “later” issue for adolescents and young adults, rather than a “now” concern, leading to low rates of conversation with health care providers. Survival rates for pediatric cancers exceed 80 percent. But late effects can persist throughout the survivor’s lifetime. Among those late effects, infertility may have both…

Starting the Conversation on Sickle Cell Disease and Reproductive Health
 Starting the Conversation on Sickle Cell Disease and Reproductive Health 1024 575 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES
By: Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Adolescents and young adults with sickle cell disease — and their caregivers — care about future fertility. But what should doctors tell them? Until just a few decades ago, sickle cell disease (SCD) was often fatal in childhood. Now that more patients reach adulthood, clinicians and researchers need to ask — and answer — questions…

Mapping the World of Pediatric Severe Sepsis
 Mapping the World of Pediatric Severe Sepsis 1024 576 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES
By: Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES
Blood cells

Researchers work to reveal the many subtypes of pediatric sepsis — and what to do about them. Once upon a time, sepsis was just sepsis. Children experiencing septic shock and its aftermath — any resulting organ failure — were viewed as a fairly homogenous group of patients. But now, thanks in a large part to…

Femoral Nerve Blockade May Reduce Need for Intravenous Opioids
 Femoral Nerve Blockade May Reduce Need for Intravenous Opioids 150 150 Mary Bates, PhD
By: Mary Bates, PhD

Researchers find no differences in postoperative pain measures for patients receiving intravenous opioids and those receiving regional anesthetic. Femur fractures often require surgical fixes and can be quite painful. Although traditionally treated with intravenous opioids, regional anesthesia may offer an alternative option. In a new study, published in the Journal of Pain Research, researchers evaluated the…

How to Identify and Treat Blood Clots in Pediatric Patients With Cancer
 How to Identify and Treat Blood Clots in Pediatric Patients With Cancer 1024 575 Mary Bates, PhD
By: Mary Bates, PhD
Black and white photo of a young patient with cancer wearing a mask and gown and holding an IV poll smiling and giving a thumbs up in the hospital

New guidelines will help doctors recognize and treat children at risk of venous thromboembolism. Prevention of blood clots is well described in adult cancer patients, but data on the problem in pediatric cancer patients is limited. In a new publication initiated at the request of the International Society of Thrombosis and Hemostasis, researchers provide guidance for…

New Guidelines Offer Practical Tools to Treat GI Reflux
 New Guidelines Offer Practical Tools to Treat GI Reflux 150 150 Jeb Phillips
By: Jeb Phillips

An international committee’s new recommendations reflect shifting opinions about acid-suppressive medications and include an expanded diagnostic algorithm. While reflux-related complaints are heard often by pediatric gastroenterologists and primary care physicians, it can be difficult to tell when gastroesophageal reflux (GER) crosses the line into gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) — or how that disease should be…

The PDA Conundrum
 The PDA Conundrum 150 150 Jeb Phillips
By: Jeb Phillips

A patent ductus arteriosus is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, but common treatments are associated with poor outcomes as well. What is a neonatologist to do? Until the mid-2000s, most neonatologists were pretty sure they knew how to handle a patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) in an infant born preterm – it needed to be…

Can Gene Therapy Treat Dominantly Inherited Disorders?
 Can Gene Therapy Treat Dominantly Inherited Disorders? 1024 575 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller
Colorful illustration of gene therapy in action

Recent applications of adeno-associated virus (AAV) mediated gene therapy have focused mainly on correcting recessively inherited diseases. But what about dominantly inherited disorders? It looks like AAV could be a delivery mechanism for treating those genetic disorders, too. Most applications of AAV-mediated gene therapy research are in recessively inherited rare diseases. The affected individuals have…

Accessing Genomic Data for Research and Clinical Diagnostics – Meeting the Challenge
 Accessing Genomic Data for Research and Clinical Diagnostics – Meeting the Challenge 1024 575 Rajeswari Swaminathan, MS
By: Rajeswari Swaminathan, MS
Rajeswari Swaminathan smiling and posing for photo in front of windows

What good is genomic data if it can’t be shared efficiently? The genesis of DNA sequencing technology in the 1970s was a turning point in science, giving birth to a modern era in biology. Further, with the unfolding of the relationship between nucleic acid order and uniqueness across species, improvement in strategies to sequence this…

FDA APPROVAL: Gene Therapy Comes of Age
 FDA APPROVAL: Gene Therapy Comes of Age 1024 575 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller
Colorful illustration of gene therapy in action

UPDATED: May 2019 On May 24, 2019, the FDA approved Zolgensma (formerly AVXS-101), a first-of-its-kind gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy. In the 13 months that have passed since this article first posted, the long-term outcomes of gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) have continued to bolster the community’s hope for the treatments. Now,…

Is Whole Exome Sequencing the Future of Kidney Stone Management?
 Is Whole Exome Sequencing the Future of Kidney Stone Management? 150 150 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES
By: Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

The first use of whole exome sequencing for monogenic causes of kidney stone disease reveals the diagnostic tool is ripe for clinical application. In the first-ever study of whole exome sequencing for early-onset kidney stone disease, an international team of researchers led by clinician-scientists at Boston Children’s Hospital expanded on their prior finding that many…

Weaving an Antimicrobial Safety Net
 Weaving an Antimicrobial Safety Net 150 150 Kevin Mayhood
By: Kevin Mayhood

Stewards thread together monitoring programs and new protocols while trimming unwarranted tests and diagnostic speed. This story also appeared in the Spring/Summer 2018 print issue. Download a PDF of the print issue. Studies estimate that 30 to 50 percent of antimicrobials prescribed in hospitals and up to 50 percent prescribed in outpatient settings are either unnecessary…

Reevaluate the Evaluation of Febrile Infants?
 Reevaluate the Evaluation of Febrile Infants? 1024 575 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES
By: Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES
Black and white photo of infant crying in hospital

For decades, complete blood cell counts have been the go-to way to identify babies at high risk for serious bacterial infections. But recent research shows the popular lab test isn’t as useful as everyone thought. The Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) has worked for the past decade to both evaluate new technologies and…