Adolescent patients who received an electronic health screening tool prior to their primary care checkup were more likely to their reduce risky behaviors, according to a recent study of 300 adolescents. The screening tool used in the study was designed to also provide motivational feedback directly to the teens. Those who were given the electronic screening tool were more likely to report that their doctor counseled them about their risk behaviors and more likely to reduce those behaviors three months later, according to Dr. Cari McCarty, investigator with Seattle Children’s Research Institute and a research professor at the University of Washington, who participated in the study.
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Children and young adults with a range of different childhood cancers are finding new hope in chimeric antigen receptor cell (CAR T-cell) trials offered at Seattle Children’s. CAR T-cell immunotherapy is one of the most promising experimental cancer therapies of our time. The ongoing clinical trials in Seattle were developed at Seattle Children’s Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research and Immunotherapy Integration Hub and represent the most comprehensive CAR T-cell immunotherapy program for pediatric patients anywhere, treating more types of childhood cancers using CAR T-cell therapies than any other facility worldwide.
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Seattle Children’s South Clinic in Federal Way recently expanded its IBD Center to offer the same full array of services available at Seattle Children’s main hospital in Seattle, with the exception of surgery.
South Sound residents now have convenient access to a dedicated infusion center with private rooms (including rapid infusion), intestinal ultrasound and X-rays and blood draws in the laboratory. The IBD team serving South Clinic includes GI physician Dr. Namita Singh, dietitians and social workers. Patients will soon also be able to have a telemedicine visit with a clinical psychologist. There is currently capacity at the South Clinic’s IBD Center to serve new families.
Provider-to-Provider consultation line: 206-987-7777 or 877-985-4637, option 4 (toll free)
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Deepti Gupta
Dr. Deepti Gupta is now offering a full range of dermatology laser services at our North Clinic in Everett, making it easier for families in the North Puget Sound region to receive skin treatments close to home rather than traveling to Seattle.
North Clinic services now include pulse dye laser 595 nm, treating hemangiomas, keloids, scars, spider angiomas, port wine stains, capillary malformations, striae distensae (stretch marks), telangiectasias, warts and more, and Nd-Yag multi nm, Alexandrite 755 nm and CO2 10,600 nm, treating café au lait macules, epidermal nevi, hirsutism/hypertrichosis, Neva of Ota, scars, keloids, venous malformations and vascular malformations. The North Clinic also provides Botox injections for hyperhidrosis, and in early summer will begin offering in-office excisions.
Provider-to-Provider consultation line: 206-987-7777 or 877-985-4637, option 4 (toll free)
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Seattle Children’s encourages area providers with patients who are unable to control their bowels after standard interventions to consider the Bowel Management Treatment Program. Space is available for this one-week intensive program that is held several times a year at Seattle Children’s main campus. Providers can refer patients or request a provider-to-provider consult by calling 206-987-1240 (option 4). Families can also self-refer.
We also invite area healthcare providers to recommend the same patients to check out the national Youth Rally Camp being held in Seattle this year from July 8 to July 13.
Seattle Children’s Reconstructive Pelvic Medicine (RPM) Program, a national leader in caring for children with a range of colorectal and other problems of the pelvic area, was recently recognized in a Pediatrics Nationwide article for being one of the few programs in the United States to offer the type of comprehensive and integrated program that best serves patients. Dr. Caitlin Smith and Dr. Paul Merguerian are co-directors of the program.
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On March 28, two Seattle Children’s providers and two community-based providers were honored as 2019 recipients of the Richard A. Molteni Award for Professionalism and Quality and the Elizabeth Thomas Award for Advanced Practice Providers. Winners included Dr. Sheryl Morelli, Dr. Cora Breuner, Susie Paeth, ARNP, and Megan Spangler, ARNP.
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Research and discoveries at Seattle Children’s shed light on brain development and new immunotherapy approaches for pediatric cancers.
Brain Research: New Clues to the Cause of Seizures. Doctors at Seattle Children’s were able to examine live brain tissue immediately after a child’s surgery. They hoped to find clues as to what activity caused by the HCN1 gene mutation might be contributing to a young boy’s life-threatening seizures. Read more in Scientists Find Clues to Rare Mutation Hours After Toddler’s Brain Surgery.
Research: New Immunotherapy Approaches for Pediatric Cancers. At Seattle Children’s, Dr. Katie Albert leads a team studying CAR T-cell therapy for solid non-CNS tumors in the STRIvE-01 trial. “Immunotherapy is moving at an accelerated pace, but just getting started for solid tumors,” said Albert. A main goal for pediatric cancer is the ability to treat it with immunotherapy only. “This is critically important for children with cancer because the long-term toxicities of chemotherapy and radiation are profound,” said Dr. Michael Jensen, director of the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. Read more in Oncology Times.
Brain Development and the Importance of Microglia. A Seattle Children’s doctor made an unexpected discovery about the importance of microglia cells to brain development, which make up just 10% of brain cells but appear to be critical to guiding brain development. Read the story in the Atlantic Monthly.
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Seattle Children’s holds Grand Rounds every Thursday in the hospital’s Wright Auditorium from 8 to 9 a.m. Area providers are welcome to attend. For more information or to view our full upcoming schedule, click here. Past Grand Rounds can be found in our video library.
The month ahead:
May 2, 2019: Family Investment in Youth Sport and Consequences for Child Well-Being. Emily Kroshus, ScD, MPH, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics at UW and Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s.
May 9, 2019: Cutaneous Manifestations of Primary Immunodeficiency Disorders. William E. Pierson Allergy Lecture. Thomas Fleisher, MD, Scientist Emeritus, Department of Laboratory Medicine, NIH Clinical Center and Executive Vice President, American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.
May 16, 2019: Serendipity – Adventures in Translational Research. Tapper Surgery Lecture. Jessica Kandel, MD; Mary Campau Ryerson, Professor of Surgery, Surgeon-in-Chief at University of Chicago Medicine Corner Children’s Hospital and Chief, Section of Pediatric Surgery.
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The first findings to result from a collaboration between Seattle Children’s Research Institute and Microsoft data scientists provide expecting mothers new information about how smoking before and during pregnancy contributes to the risk of an infant dying suddenly and unexpectedly before their first birthday.
According to the study published in Pediatrics, any amount of smoking during pregnancy — even just one cigarette a day — doubles the risk of an infant dying from SUID. For women who smoked an average of 1 to 20 cigarettes a day, the odds of SUID increased by 0.07 with each additional cigarette smoked.
Tatiana Anderson
“With this information, doctors can better counsel pregnant women about their smoking habits, knowing that the number of cigarettes smoked daily during pregnancy significantly impacts the risk for SUID,” said Dr. Tatiana Anderson, a researcher in Seattle Children’s Center for Integrative Brain Research and lead author on the study. “Similar to public health campaigns that educated parents about the importance of infant sleep position, leading to a 50% decrease in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) rates, we hope advising women about this risk will result in [fewer] babies dying from these tragic causes.”
Scientists at Seattle Children’s Research Institute are looking for new clues in an important indicator of overall infant health — a baby’s developing immune system and microbiome.
Ongoing research not only examines how an infant’s microbiome can evolve to help protect against HIV infection but also what factors, such as diet, alter an infant’s susceptibility when exposed to HIV through their mother’s breast milk. Read more about the research being conducted by Dr. Heather Jaspan of Seattle Children’s Center for Global Infectious Disease Research.
