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: [email protected]
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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Airlift Northwest and Seattle Children’s are collaborating to further enhance the care available to our region’s most fragile neonatal patients. Starting July 15, 2019, Seattle Children’s Pediatric Neonatal Critical Care Transport Service team members (RN and RT) will accompany Airlift Northwest staff and help provide clinical care on flights transporting neonatal patients between hospitals.
“By combining the expertise of the long-standing critical care flight program at Airlift Northwest with Seattle Children’s Neonatal Critical Care Team, we will be bringing the best of both programs to the patient bedside,” says Dr. Jessica Wall, assistant pediatric medical director of Airlift Northwest and clinical assistant professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “That means better outcomes for our pediatric patients in Western Washington and beyond.” Read full post »
Fawn Leigh
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the leading genetic cause of death for infants. Seattle Children’s neurologist Fawn Leigh talks about the fast-changing landscape of research and treatment that is bringing new hope to patients and their families.
What do you want providers to know about SMA?
Dr. Fawn Leigh, neurologist, Seattle Children’s: Being aware of SMA and spotting it early is very important in getting babies into treatment. It can be seen as early as during the newborn checkup. The most common feature of infants with SMA is hypotonia (low muscle tone). We typically see babies with neck flexor weakness, where they can’t lift their head on their own, and significant head lag when pulling up. There’s an absence of reflexes too. But the main thing is hypotonia; that’s the red flag providers should watch out for. Read full post »
The Washington Mental Health Referral Service for Children and Teens has doubled its staff from two to four and is planning to add another referral specialist during the school year. The move comes in response to high and growing demand for the free, telephone-based referral service that officially launched in April. Referrals have jumped from 67 in April to 108 in June.
The service is designed for children and teens 17 and younger from across Washington, connecting families with evidence-supported outpatient mental health services in the community. Families receive a custom referral to meet their individual location, insurance and the mental health needs of their child. Referral specialists call local mental health providers to verify their availability before making a referral to the family and then coach the family to contact the provider as soon as possible to secure the appointment. More than half of all families (58%) who responded to a post-referral survey reported success in getting their child in to see a mental health specialist.
The Washington Healthcare Authority funds the referral service, and Seattle Children’s operates it. It works closely with the existing Partnership Access Line (PAL) mental health consult line at Seattle Children’s. Read full post »
Seattle Children’s Is Growing
Seattle Children’s is moving forward with three major construction projects to expand its clinical capacity and research facilities around Seattle and improve access to care for all patients.
- Building Care: new clinical space at the hospital campus
- Building Cure: a downtown Seattle research facility
- OBCC Othello: a second Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic in southeast Seattle
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Seattle Children’s is hosting a webinar on our Bowel Management Treatment Program. If you have patients who can’t control their bowels even after standard interventions, join us on Aug. 14 to learn about our one-week program. It serves patients ages 3 to 21 who:
- Never succeeded at potty training and are still having accidents regularly
- Experience repeated urinary tract infections (UTIs) and tummy aches due to ongoing constipation
- Have had pelvic reconstruction surgery and still experience incontinence
- Have Hirschsprung disease or anorectal malformations and still
experience incontinence
- Have no known condition but have failed to improve with standard well-child
constipation management strategies
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