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Monthly Archives :

September 2024

Meet David Axelson, MD, Chief of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health
 Meet David Axelson, MD, Chief of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health 1024 647 Shannon Caldwell
By: Shannon Caldwell

Dr. Axelson and his team have achieved amazing things in the last decade, from more than doubling the volume of patients served to establishing a new research institute for mental and behavioral health, and they’re not slowing down. We recently sat down to talk with Dr. Axelson about his time at Nationwide Children’s and his…

Weighing the Risk of Blood Clots With Reward of Less Pain
 Weighing the Risk of Blood Clots With Reward of Less Pain 1024 683 Pam Georgiana
By: Pam Georgiana

For people with sickle cell disease who menstruate, hormonal contraception can be effective against SCD-related pain, but it also raises the risk of thrombosis.   As people with sickle cell disease (SCD) transition into their reproductive years, health care providers are increasingly focused on optimizing their overall health, including the safe management of contraception. For…

What Primary Care Providers Need to Know About Precocious Puberty
 What Primary Care Providers Need to Know About Precocious Puberty 1024 683 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES
By: Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

PCPs are the first line of defense in recognizing and referring possible cases of precocious puberty to endocrinologists for formal diagnosis and treatment. Precocious puberty — signs of the onset of puberty before the age of 8 in girls and 9 in boys — affects less than 1% of children in the United States, and…

Shedding Light on Immune Responses in Children With Acute Asthma Exacerbations
 Shedding Light on Immune Responses in Children With Acute Asthma Exacerbations 969 533 JoAnna Pendergrass, DVM
By: JoAnna Pendergrass, DVM
Illustration of NK Cells, T Cells, other immune cells floating across white background

The innate immune system is upregulated in children hospitalized with acute asthma exacerbations, signaling a need for therapies that target innate immune pathways to help control acute asthma flare-ups more effectively.  Asthma affects more than 6 million children in the United States, yet little is known about the immune responses that occur with acute asthma…

Treating Obesity With GLP-1s — Finding the Way Forward
 Treating Obesity With GLP-1s — Finding the Way Forward 150 150 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller

Using lessons learned from medicating mental and behavioral health conditions, Stephen Cook, MD, offers suggestions about how medications approved for adolescents with obesity should become part of care.   For most of the time in Western medicine, people have treated obesity like a choice — not a disease. Like other conditions now understood to be…

Approaching Uncertainty in Medicine With a Growth Mindset
 Approaching Uncertainty in Medicine With a Growth Mindset 1024 531 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller

In baseball, a really good batting average is .333 — which means the batter hits the ball and gets to first base a third of the time. That also means they miss —they fail — two-thirds of the time. Medical providers are expected to get things right 100% of the time,” says Michael Patrick, MD,…

Tissue-Engineered Vascular Grafts Resist Calcification
 Tissue-Engineered Vascular Grafts Resist Calcification 968 1024 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller

Dystrophic calcification is the biggest reason for prosthetic biomaterial failure. Compared to expanded poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) grafts, tissue-engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) exhibited superior durability, including reduced late-term calcification, according to a study published in Nature Communications. “All of the biomaterials we routinely use for cardiovascular surgery are susceptible to dystrophic calcification,” says Christopher Breuer, MD, pediatric…

CSPINE Injury Prediction Rule Could Decrease Radiographic Imaging Exposure in Children
 CSPINE Injury Prediction Rule Could Decrease Radiographic Imaging Exposure in Children 1024 675 Katelyn Scott
By: Katelyn Scott

A new study shows that implementing the rule can reduce CT scans by more than 50% without missing clinically significant injuries. While cervical spine injuries (CSI) are uncommon in children, they can be potentially devastating, resulting in quadriplegia — paralysis below the neck affecting both arms and both legs. Detecting CSIs in a clinical setting…

Patient Perspective: Living With Weight-Based Stigma
 Patient Perspective: Living With Weight-Based Stigma 1024 376 Alaina Doklovic
By: Alaina Doklovic

In 2019, 15-year-old Paige watched her father die from a disease that was consistently ignored, and his symptoms repeatedly blamed on his weight. He had stage 4 cancer by the time he was properly diagnosed. Shortly after his death, her mother had a 40-pound cyst removed, a surgery that she and other doctors believe could…

Health-Related Quality of Life in Pediatric Cancer Survivors: Assessing the Impacts
 Health-Related Quality of Life in Pediatric Cancer Survivors: Assessing the Impacts 1024 683 Madison Storm
By: Madison Storm

Family factors have a significant impact on health-related quality of life. Childhood cancer is a life-changing diagnosis for children and their families. Children undergoing cancer treatment often experience impairment in health-related quality of life compared to children from healthy populations. The severity of impact can depend, in part, on social determinants of health, such as…

Weight-Based Stigma and Its Impact on Children With Obesity
 Weight-Based Stigma and Its Impact on Children With Obesity 1024 376 Alaina Doklovic
By: Alaina Doklovic

More children in the United States live with obesity than any other chronic condition. The obesity rate among U.S. children and teens has more than tripled since 1980, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although there are numerous efforts underway to help children and adults reach and maintain a healthy weight,…

Good Intentions but Low Adherence for Safe Sleep Guidelines
 Good Intentions but Low Adherence for Safe Sleep Guidelines 1024 585 JoAnna Pendergrass, DVM
By: JoAnna Pendergrass, DVM

Although mothers are aware of the Safe Sleep Guidelines developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, they frequently deviate from them to try to help their babies sleep better and longer. Research recently published in Pediatrics and conducted by Lara B. McKenzie, MA, PhD, FAAHB, principal investigator in the Center for Injury Research and Policy…

Virtual Surgical Planning for Musculoskeletal Oncology
 Virtual Surgical Planning for Musculoskeletal Oncology 150 150 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller

CT of pelvis showing tumor MRI of pelvis showing tumor Step 1: Data acquisition: Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance images (MRI) are obtained during the same visit with markers used to help align the scans to create the composite image. That composite is used to develop the virtual model. Step 2: The 3D Printing and Innovations…

Biofilms: The Good, the Bad & the Groundbreaking
 Biofilms: The Good, the Bad & the Groundbreaking 1024 615 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES
By: Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

Decades of research into the structure and function of bacterial biofilms have begun to pay off in the form of imminent clinical applications capable of harnessing both the protective and problematic aspects of this universal phenomenon. Imagine a hospital emergency department filled with patients — those with painful ear infections, recurrent urinary tract infections, fevers…

Delivering Implicit Bias Training for Health Care Providers – Via Smartphone
 Delivering Implicit Bias Training for Health Care Providers – Via Smartphone 1024 680 Jessica Nye, PhD
By: Jessica Nye, PhD

A Virtual and Augmented Reality Implicit Association Training (VARIAT) app developed by investigators from Nationwide Children’s Hospital and The Ohio State University leverages mobile technology to bring implicit bias training to the hands of Medicaid clinicians. Everyone has implicit biases that manifest as favorable or unfavorable perspectives about race, gender, sexual orientation and/or socioeconomic status,…

From Scan to Plan: Making Virtual Surgical Planning the Standard of Care for Ortho-oncology Operations
 From Scan to Plan: Making Virtual Surgical Planning the Standard of Care for Ortho-oncology Operations 1024 281 Abbie Miller
By: Abbie Miller

“We deal in rarities,” says Thomas Scharschmidt, MD, director of the Pediatric Orthopedic Oncology Program at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and professor of Orthopedics at The Ohio State University. “When you consider that across the entire U.S. population, we have between 2,500 and 3,000 cases of primary malignant bone tumors each year, and only half of…

Lessons Learned: From First Gen Student to Chief Scientific Officer
 Lessons Learned: From First Gen Student to Chief Scientific Officer 1024 683 Nationwide Children's
By: Nationwide Children's

Joanne Turner, PhD, chief scientific officer at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, shares what it’s like to go from first gen college student to academic leadership.    What inspired you to go to college and pursue a bachelor’s degree in science? When I was in school, college never came up as…

Empowering Therapists With Better Tools
 Empowering Therapists With Better Tools 1024 481 Wendy Margolin
By: Wendy Margolin

New research director sets out to improve mental and behavioral health care with assessments.  Providing mental or behavioral health care without simple, effective clinical assessment tools is like trying to lose weight without access to a bathroom scale, says Eric Youngstrom, PhD, the new director of the Institute for Mental and Behavioral Health Research at…

How Do Treatments for Adolescent Obesity Compare?
 How Do Treatments for Adolescent Obesity Compare? 1024 682 Pam Georgiana
By: Pam Georgiana

A recent review of the literature highlights current treatment strategies for adolescent obesity. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), obesity and severe obesity are chronic health conditions with increasing incidence in adolescents, putting them at risk for associated comorbidities. Obesity affects approximately 21% of adolescents (12 to 18 years of age) in the…

Advancing Predictive Models in Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury
 Advancing Predictive Models in Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury 1024 683 Erin Gregory
By: Erin Gregory

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of disability and mortality among children, causing thousands of deaths each year. Despite tools such as the Glasgow Outcomes Scale (GOS) and the Pediatric Glasgow Coma Scale (PGCS), reliable methods for predicting mortality during initial trauma resuscitation are limited. In a recent study, Katherine Bergus, MD, general…

Loss of RNase 6 Increases Susceptibility to Upper Urinary Tract Infections, Model Shows
 Loss of RNase 6 Increases Susceptibility to Upper Urinary Tract Infections, Model Shows 1024 575 Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES
By: Katie Brind'Amour, PhD, MS, CHES

The latest in a robust series of studies confirms an important role for RNase 6 in deterring infections of the ureters and kidneys.   Research teams at the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital have long been studying a superfamily of ribonucleases for their role as natural antimicrobials in the human urinary tract.…

Do Text Messages Help Youth at Risk For Suicide Feel Supported After Discharge?
 Do Text Messages Help Youth at Risk For Suicide Feel Supported After Discharge? 1024 683 Katelyn Scott
By: Katelyn Scott

Nationwide Children’s is the first pediatric hospital to implement Caring Contacts approach within its Zero Suicide initiative. The initial study period shows high enrollment and satisfaction with the program. Youth who receive care for suicidal thoughts and behaviors need extra support as they transition after they are discharged from inpatient care or the emergency department.…

Surgical Repair of Cloacal Malformation Does Not Worsen Bladder Function
 Surgical Repair of Cloacal Malformation Does Not Worsen Bladder Function 1024 683 Mary Bates, PhD
By: Mary Bates, PhD

The complexity of the malformation, more than the surgical approach, determines post-operative urodynamics. Approximately 90% of girls with cloacal malformation exhibit some degree of bladder dysfunction. While associated conditions can impact bladder dynamics, the complex surgery required to repair cloacal malformation has also been hypothesized to cause bladder dysfunction. Strategies to repair cloacal malformation in…

Has the Next Generation of Gene Therapy Arrived?
 Has the Next Generation of Gene Therapy Arrived? 1024 683 Wendy Margolin
By: Wendy Margolin

Researchers crack the code to deliver dual gene therapy in preclinical studies – with promises of wider applications. In a gene therapy breakthrough, a Nationwide Children’s Hospital researcher has successfully used an adeno-associated virus (AAV) to introduce two genes into cells with a single vector. Paul Martin, PhD, created a new dual gene vector approach…

Uncovering the Alarming Rise in Death by Suicide Among Preteens
 Uncovering the Alarming Rise in Death by Suicide Among Preteens 1024 657 Pam Georgiana
By: Pam Georgiana

Data from a new study implies that gender and race/ethnicity play a role in increasing suicide rates. Youth suicide is a significant public health concern. When the National Institute of Mental Health convened a research roundtable series to address the rising rates of death by suicide in preteens in 2021, the Center for Suicide Prevention…