Todd Cooper
Seattle Children’s is embarking on a groundbreaking clinical trial that will potentially transform treatment methods for children with relapsed acute pediatric leukemia. The trial will test multiple targeted therapies simultaneously at up to 200 clinical sites worldwide, including Seattle Children’s.
“Our goal is to get everyone to the table and work together. We’ve come to realize that’s the only way to make further progress,” says Dr. Todd Cooper of Seattle Children’s, who will head the new clinical trial. Dr. Cooper is an oncologist and director of the Seattle Children’s High-Risk Leukemia Program. He will oversee the master screening trial where children with newly diagnosed and relapsed acute leukemia can choose to have their clinical and biologic information included in an international database. The database will serve many purposes, including helping to determine an individual child’s eligibility for a number of targeted clinical trials. The data will also be used to uncover new targets for therapy and serve as a rich source for groundbreaking discoveries.
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Help prevent RSV pneumonia in healthy infants. Seattle Children’s is recruiting infants for a phase 3 clinical research study looking at an investigational medication (monoclonal antibody) for prevention of RSV lower respiratory tract infection. Infants may be eligible if they were born on or after May 1, 2019, reached gestational age of 35 weeks or later and are healthy with no known history of RSV infection or lung disease. Infants would be in the study for about one year and six months, and would come to the Seattle Children’s research center for at least six visits. Infants would be closely monitored for respiratory illness throughout the study.
The MELODY study is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. It will include about 3,000 babies globally. Dr. Janet Englund of Seattle Children’s is the principal investigator.
If you would like to learn more about the study or have a patient who is interested, please contact IDResearch@seattlechildrens.org or call 206-884-1100.
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Join us Thursday mornings from 8 to 9 a.m. for presentations by pediatric healthcare experts. All are welcome at this weekly free Category 1 CME event. Location: Wright Auditorium, Seattle Children’s. Or watch the live webcast.
Nov. 7: Saving the Babies We Worked So Hard to Get Here: The Real Story of Safe Infant Sleep. Ben Hoffman, MD, CPST-I, FAAP; professor of pediatrics, Division of General Pediatrics School of Medicine, OHSU; medical director, Tom Sargent Safety Center; director, Oregon Center for Children and Youth with Special Health Needs.
Nov. 14: The Contributions of Genes and Prenatal Events to Cerebellar Anomalies. Ron Lemire Embryology Lecture. Kimberly Aldinger, PhD; Center for Integrative Brain Research, Seattle Children’s.
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Seattle Children’s has released new referral guidelines for Gastroenterology, Endocrinology and Genetics — specialty clinics with access challenges and longer wait times for new patient appointments. Each clinic is open to new referrals.
The new guidelines are designed to improve new patients’ timely access to specialty care while redirecting patients who do not require specialty care to their medical home and primary care provider (PCP), along with resources for PCPs to assist them in managing their patients’ care.
View the new referral guidelines on the “Refer a Patient” pages for:
View the printable PDF flyers summarizing the referral guidelines changes:
Referral guidelines for other specialty clinics will be updated and posted on their “Refer a Patient” webpages as they become available. Read full post »
Kathleen Kieran
Kathleen Kieran, MD is a pediatric urologist serving patients in both Seattle and Tri-Cities.
You’re from Boston originally. What brought you to Seattle Children’s?
Dr. Kathleen Kieran, pediatric urologist, Seattle Children’s: I’ve been slowly working my way across the country from the East Coast. I grew up in the suburbs of Boston, and went to college, graduate school, and medical school there. I attended the University of Michigan for my urology residency, and then the University of Tennessee for pediatric urology fellowship. I worked in Iowa for 5 years before I came to Seattle.
The greatest impetus for my move to the West Coast was that my husband (who grew up in Puyallup and is an adult urologist in Tri-Cities) loves living in the Pacific Northwest and will absolutely not entertain the idea of living anywhere else. So I called Dr. Paul Merguerian [Seattle Children’s division chief of urology], and luckily they were about to post a position. Read full post »
Seattle Children’s is changing the Diabetes intake and patient education protocol for newly diagnosed and otherwise healthy diabetes patients from a two- to three-day inpatient hospital stay to a two-day outpatient education program. Referral instructions have also changed and will require additional lab/test results to be provided before scheduling. Visit the Endocrinology and Diabetes “Refer a Patient” page to learn more about the new Diabetes outpatient education program, what tests and labs are now required before making a referral and more details on how to refer a patient for diabetes.
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Seattle Children’s is providing influenza vaccinations to inpatients and outpatients in Seattle and our regional clinics. Patients will be screened for eligibility. Seattle Children’s will also offer the vaccination to patients in the Emergency Department and our Urgent Care locations. All vaccinations given to patients are documented in the Child Profile Immunization Registry.
We will also provide flu shot vouchers to patients’ family members and household contacts age three and older during patient visits and stays; the vouchers can be used at any Bartell Drugs with no out-of-pocket cost (Bartell will bill family members’ insurance, if available, and charge any remaining balance to Seattle Children’s). This year, the vouchers will also be accepted at Samy’s Health Mart in Olympia and Rx Pharmacy in Richland, with no out-of-pocket cost. Family members and household contacts 6 months to 35 months old will need to get their flu vaccine at their primary care provider’s office.
Seattle Children’s efforts to vaccinate patients are in accordance with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to increase access to the vaccine in healthcare settings.
For questions about flu vaccinations at Seattle Children’s, email Dr. Matthew Kronman, infectious diseases specialist.
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Dr. Douglas J. Opel is offering a one-hour course about vaccine hesitancy and how healthcare providers can better communicate with parents who have concerns about vaccines. The course is designed for physicians, physician assistants, advanced registered nurse practitioners, registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and medical assistants.
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Collaboration between Seattle Children’s and community partners led by a farmworkers clinic in the Yakima Valley is improving cancer outcomes for children in non–English-speaking families who are more likely to miss out on lifesaving care. Growing evidence points to a strong connection between socioeconomic status and cancer survival rates in the United States, according to a recent article in U.S. News & World Report. Read full post »
In a study published in JAMA Network Open, Seattle Children’s researchers found that one-on-one sessions teaching skills through a tool called Promoting Resilience in Stress Management for Parents (PRISM-P) improved resilience and benefit finding, or personal growth, among parents of children with cancer. “This tells me we are doing what is perhaps most important for parents: helping them to know they can come back again tomorrow and that they can find some good in the bad. These two things will help both them and their families,” said Dr. Abby Rosenberg, a researcher at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and lead author of the study.
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