Tonya Palermo
Tonya Palermo, director of the Pediatric Pain and Sleep Innovations Lab at Seattle Children’s Research Institute, has released a free mobile application (app) for Android and iPhone to help youth ages 10 to 18 who are experiencing chronic pain. The app is based on content from the Web-based Management of Adolescent Pain (WebMAP) Internet program that has been tested in multiple clinical trials. It helps teens learn about chronic pain, set goals for increasing their physical activities, learn relaxation and imagery strategies, and receive interventions for problems with sleep and low mood. Read full post »
In the largest genetic study of the most common birth defects of the brain diagnosed during pregnancy, researchers from Seattle Children’s Research Institute say their findings evolve our understanding of brain development. The findings will also change the information given to expecting parents when cerebellar malformations are detected prenatally. “If you have a child at risk for developmental challenges, it helps to know the cause and what’s going to happen. This study significantly advances our ability to answer those questions,” said Dr. William Dobyns, the senior author on the paper published in the American Journal of Human Genetics and an investigator in the Center for Integrative Brain Research. Dobyns and lead author, Dr. Kimberly Aldinger, identified 27 different genes as key contributors. Read full post »
Michael Portman
How has our understanding of Kawasaki disease etiology changed?
Dr. Michael Portman, director, Pediatric Cardiovascular Research, Seattle Children’s: Kawasaki disease (KD) is considered a systemic autoinflammatory disease and vasculitis that shows specific predilection for the coronary arteries, resulting in dilation or aneurysm formation. Many KD experts believe that the autoinflammatory response is triggered by environmental factors in genetically susceptible children. Over the past decade numerous genetic loci and polymorphisms have been identified as influencing KD susceptibility and treatment response. For instance, studies performed at Seattle Children’s Research Institute have highlighted the importance of polymorphisms for genes encoding Fcγ receptors, which regulate immune cell responses. The specific environmental factors have not been clearly identified but may be related to a common antigen carried by certain bacteria or viruses. Read full post »
Providing safe, quality care is our most important responsibility at Seattle Children’s, and we are all committed to doing what is right to keep our patients safe. Thanks to community partners like you, we continue to uphold our commitment and deliver care to patients across our region. We are very sorry for the impact this has had on our patients, families and community partners.
Ongoing Improvements
In the coming months, we will make additional improvements to our air filtration system and install a new air handler. We have learned a great deal throughout this experience and will share our learnings with other hospitals and regulatory organizations. Learn more about the improvements we have implemented.
As we continue to implement additional, long-term and enhanced maintenance to our air handling and purification system, we expect intermittent, planned closures of our operating rooms. We will take great care to support patients and families during these maintenance activities.
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Scientists at Seattle Children’s Research Institute are paving the way to use gene-edited B cells — a type of white blood cell in the immune system — to treat a wide range of potential diseases that affect children, including hemophilia and other protein deficiency disorders, autoimmune diseases, and infectious diseases. If successful, their research would open the door to offering this experimental cell therapy as the first of its kind in clinical trials at Seattle Children’s in as soon as five years.
B cells play a central role in the immune system. When the body is confronted with an infection, B cells turn into plasma cells that release protective antibodies that both fight ongoing infections and prevent future ones. Unlike other cells of the immune system that have relatively short lifespans, plasma B cells can survive and continuously produce antibodies for decades. Read full post »
Presentations by Dr. David Suskind and Dr. Dale Lee of Seattle Children’s IBD Center at this year’s Nutrition Symposium on the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD) are now available to view online. There is mounting evidence that certain nutritional therapies, including SCD, can reduce inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) inflammation and promote healing of the intestinal mucosa in children. The IBD Center at Seattle Children’s is a leader in offering these nutritional therapies that are not found everywhere.
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Out of every 60,000 births, a baby arrives to face the world without a fully functioning immune system, leaving them unequipped to fight even the most common infections. Children with this rare life-threatening genetic condition, known as severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), have the best chance at a healthy future if they undergo a stem cell transplant before they are three and a half months old.
Seattle Children’s recently opened a clinical trial that is seeking a potentially safer, less aggressive and equally effective path to a cure by using a novel gene therapy to fix the faulty gene that causes the most common type of SCID.
On the Pulse met with the trial’s principal investigator, Dr. Aleksandra Petrovic, a pediatric transplant specialist and researcher at Seattle Children’s Research Institute’s Center for Immunity and Immunotherapies, to learn more about the experimental therapy available through this trial.
Aleksandra Petrovic
What hope does this trial offer to a baby born with SCID?
Dr. Petrovic: SCID refers to a group of inherited disorders where many genetic abnormalities hinder the development of critical components of the immune system in one way or another. Without treatment, children with SCID will not live past two years old. Those fortunate enough to have a sibling match — about 25% of patients — can undergo a bone marrow transplant, with a high rate of success. Otherwise, transplant from an unrelated donor or a parent is the next best treatment option, but provides in some cases only partial correction of the deficiency.
This trial offers a new way to treat one type of SCID called X-linked SCID in newborns with no sibling match. X-linked SCID, or XSCID, affects boys and is the one we see most often. Our hope is that the gene therapy will produce a more robust immune system without the complications associated with transplant in these babies. Read full post »
The Partnership Access Line (PAL) is hosting a free child mental health educational conference for primary care providers on Sept. 14, 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Davenport Grand Hotel, 333 W. Spokane Falls Blvd., Spokane, WA 99201. Breakfast and treats provided.
Topics include: Pediatric Mood Dysregulation: Irritability, Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder, and Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety, and ADHD Overview and Update.
Learn more and register.
Read more information about upcoming conferences.
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Seattle Children’s is offering a one-day conference on hot topics in pediatrics as part of the “What’s New in Medicine” conference in Kennewick, Washington, on Saturday, September 7 (nine CME credits, Category 1).
See the conference brochure for details on the schedule, speakers and topics. Space is limited. To register, visit the “What’s New in Medicine” (WNIM) website at www.whatsnewinmedicine.org and scroll down to click on “Register Now.” Read full post »
Seattle Children’s Department of Psychology offers: “Late Onset of ADHD: Fact or Fiction?” Presented by Margaret Sibley, PhD, associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Sept. 5, 6 p.m.
Location: Providence St. Peter’s Medical Center, 413 Lilly Road NE, Olympia, WA 98506, Room 200 (Maps and Directions)
RSVP: patricia.kilburn@seattlechildrens.org
Learning objectives:
- Understand key steps in the diagnostic process for adolescents and adults who present with first-time ADHD symptoms.
- Differentiate false positive ADHD cases from true cases of the disorder.
- Recognize valid versus invalid profiles of late-onset ADHD.
- Identify risk factors for the development or exacerbation of ADHD symptoms in adolescence.
- Become familiar with diagnostic and treatment recommendations for adolescents and adults with a first time diagnosis of ADHD.
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