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Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC Clinical Trial Aims to Prevent Type 2 Diabetes in Youth through Medication

Posted by andrewsj3 on Wednesday, May 22nd 2013     

PITTSBURGH, May 22, 2013 – A clinical trial being conducted at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC will examine whether type 2 diabetes can be prevented or slowed in high-risk youth by treating them with diabetes medications before they have the full-blown disease.

The Restoring Insulin Secretion Study: RISE Pediatric Medication Study (RISE) is currently enrolling overweight/obese adolescents who have prediabetes or have been recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. RISE will examine the effects of two medications: metformin and insulin. The expectation is that the use of these medications before diabetes has developed will preserve or enhance the body’s ability to produce insulin, the hormone that is crucial to maintaining normal blood sugar levels.

“RISE aims to identify young people who are at high risk for developing diabetes and then treat them with medications for a few months to prevent its development,” said Silva Arslanian M.D., pediatric endocrinologist and diabetologist, chief, Weight Management and Wellness Center at Children’s Hospital, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and principal investigator of RISE. “We also want to try to determine if those with a short duration of diabetes of a few months might benefit from treatment with these medications. In both cases, the goal is to attempt to prevent loss of, or even restore, insulin secretion by the pancreas.”

“Our findings from the Treatment Options for Type 2 Diabetes in Adolescents and Youth (TODAY) trial indicate that type 2 diabetes may be more difficult to treat in teenagers than in adults,” said Dr. Arslanian, who has been the principal investigator of the Pittsburgh site for the TODAY trial for the past 12 years. “Unlike adults, their disease seems to be more aggressive and less responsive to available standard treatments. It is imperative that we build upon our findings from the TODAY trial to find treatment alternatives so these young people can stay healthier longer.”

Children’s Hospital is one of four sites recruiting adolescents and young adults for participation in the RISE pediatric medication study; the others are Yale University, Indiana University and Children’s Hospital Colorado.

The RISE study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, is currently recruiting participants to take part in the research study at the Pediatric Clinical and Translational Research Center (PCTRC) at Children’s Hospital. The PCTRC is a unique multidisciplinary setting that gives physicians the opportunity to investigate childhood diseases in a controlled environment in both an inpatient and outpatient basis. To be eligible for the study, participants must be between 10 and 19 years of age, have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes for less than six months, and be overweight.

RISE is supported under NIH grants U01DK94430, U01DK94431, U01DK94406, U01DK94438 and U01DK94467.

For more information about this study, please contact a member of the RISE study team at 412-692-5846 or visit www.chp.edu/rise.

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About Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
Renowned for its outstanding clinical services, research programs and medical education, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC has helped establish the standards of excellence in pediatric care. From ambulatory care to transplantation and cardiac care, talented and committed pediatric experts care for infants, children and adolescents who make more than 1 million visits to Children’s and its many neighborhood locations each year. Children’s also has been named consistently to several elite lists of pediatric health care facilities, including ranking 7th among children’s hospitals and schools of medicine (FY 2011) in funding provided by the National Institutes of Health, and is one of 12 pediatric hospitals in the United States named to U.S. News & World Report‘s Honor Roll of America’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” for 2012–2013.

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category: Pediatrics
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Child Neurodevelopmental and Mental Health Disabilities on the Rise, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC Study Finds

Posted by andrewsj3 on Sunday, May 5th 2013     

PITTSBURGH, May 5, 2013 – More children have disabilities now than a decade ago, and the greatest increase is among children of higher-income families, according to a Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC study presented today at the Pediatric Academic Societies(PAS) annual meeting in Washington, DC.

Results of the study, led by Amy Houtrow, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., chief, Division of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine at Children’s Hospital, also showed that while disabilities due to neurodevelopmental and mental health problems have increased sharply, disabilities related to physical health conditions have decreased. This trend was most noteworthy among children under 6 years of age whose rate of neurodevelopmental disabilities nearly doubled during the study, from 19 cases to 36 cases per 1,000 children.

“A century of health care improvements and social changes have altered the face of childhood chronic disease and disability,” said Dr. Houtrow, who also is an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation and of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “Nearly six  million kids were considered disabled in 2009 and 2010—almost one million more than in 2001 and 2002.”

Dr. Houtrow said that while previous studies have found an increase in the  prevalence of childhood disability, she and the research team wanted to look more closely at the specific conditions and socio-demographic factors associated with disabilities.

The researchers studied data from the National Health Interview Survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2001 to 2002 and from 2009 to 2010. Participants included  more than 102,000 parents of children up to age 17.

The research team assembled a composite of disability indicators to identify disabled children and their associated underlying chronic conditions. Conditions were categorized into three groups: physical, neurodevelopmental/mental health, and other.

The overall rate of disability for children under age 18 increased 16.3 percent between the 2001 to 2002 study period and the 2009 to 2010 study period.

Children living in poverty represented the largest numbers of overall children with disability in both time periods but not the highest growth rates. The largest increase in growth rates of disabilities was seen among children living in households with incomes at or above 300 percent of the federal poverty level—about $66,000 a year for a family of four in 2010.

“We are worried that children living in lower income families may be having problems accessing diagnostic and treatment services,” Dr. Houtrow said.

Since the study could not pinpoint why the disability rate is increasing, more research is needed, the author concluded.

Co-investigators were: Kandyce Larson, Ph.D., American Academy of Pediatrics; Paul Newacheck, Dr.P.H., Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy, University of California San Francisco; Neal Halfon M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Pediatrics, Health Policy and Management, UCLA.

For more information on Dr. Houtrow and the Division of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine, visit http://www.chp.edu/rehab.

 

 

 

category: Pediatrics
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Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC Study Reveals Success Rate of Minimally Invasive Surgical Approaches in Infants

Posted by andrewsj3 on Wednesday, April 10th 2013     
PITTSBURGH, April 10, 2013 – Blockage between the kidney and the ureter in infants can be successfully repaired with minimally invasive surgical approaches, according to a Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC study. The findings are published in the April issue of The Journal of Urology.
 
Ureteropelvic junction (UPJ) obstruction is the most common obstructive urinary system disease in infants, according to senior investigator Michael Ost, M.D., chief, Division of Pediatric Urology at Children’s Hospital. The problem typically has been repaired with a procedure called pyeloplasty, in which an incision is made in the infant’s side to reach and remove scar tissue where the kidney meets the ureter, the tube that carries urine to the bladder.
 
The minimally invasive approach – called transperitoneal laparoscopic pyeloplasty, which can also be done with robot assistance – has emerged as a safe, effective alternative to the standard open pyeloplasty. Both laparoscopic and open pyeloplasty have comparable effectiveness in pediatric patients, but the role of infants is less well defined.
 
“This population can be challenging to treat laparascopically because of the small size of the abdomen and caliber of the ureter,” Dr. Ost said.
 
His team reviewed records of 29 children younger than 12 months old treated with transperitoneal laparoscopic pyeloplasty for UPJ obstruction from May 2005 to February 2012. Of the 24 patients for whom follow-up data was available, 22 (92 percent) had successful repairs. Two patients required a second, open procedure to correct the obstruction.
 
“Our results show the laparoscopic approach is a safe and effective option for the surgical management of UPJ obstruction in the infant population,” said Dr. Ost. “Our early experience reveals a developing success rate comparable to that of other treatment modalities with minimal morbidity.”
 
Children’s is a national leader in minimally invasive procedures, having performed more than 1,000 such surgeries in the last year. So far in fiscal year 2013, Children’s surgeons have performed more than 760 MIS operations.
 
Children’s is also one of just a handful of pediatric hospitals in the world that features the top-of-the-line surgical robot system, called the daVinci SI Dual Consol Surgical System. The technology allows Children’s surgeons to perform some minimally invasive procedures that in the past couldn’t be performed laproscopically. Increasingly complex, delicate operations can be done through very small surgical openings by specially trained surgeons through the use of the daVinci. Growth in robotic procedures has increased markedly across surgical services.
 
For more information on Dr. Ost and to learn more about minimally invasive and robotic-assisted surgeries at Children’s Hospital, please visit http://www.chp.edu/minimally+invasive+surgery.
category: Pediatrics, Urology
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Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC Study Shows Increase in Liver Transplantation for Hepatoblastoma

Posted by andrewsj3 on Monday, March 4th 2013     
PITTSBURGH, March 4, 2013 – Liver transplantation for hepatoblastoma, the most common liver malignancy in children, is on the rise because more tumors are being detected earlier, improving outcomes for these sick patients, according to a Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC study.

Results of the study, led by Rakesh Sindhi, M.D., co-director, Pediatric Transplantation at the Hillman Center for Pediatric Transplantation at Children’s Hospital, are published in the February issue of Surgery.

Dr. Sindhi and the group observed outcomes in 35 children with hepatoblastoma who received transplants over three decades at Children’s Hospital, making this the largest published single center experience in the United States. Nearly twice as many patients received liver transplants for the malignancy at Children’s Hospital in the most recent decade compared to the previous two decades. This observation led the group to ask whether the incidence of this malignancy and of liver transplantation for hepatoblastoma has increased in the United States, thereby posing additional challenges in allocating the scarce resource of pediatric livers available for transplantation, and whether increased use of liver transplantation has improved post-transplantation outcomes for children diagnosed with this form of cancer.
 
To evaluate national trends, the researchers reviewed data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) registry representing 9.451 percent of the U.S. population from 1975 to 2007; the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) from 1988 to 2010; and Children’s Hospital from 1987 to 2011.
 
The group found that estimated hepatoblastoma cases in the United States increased four-fold between 1975 and 2007, liver transplantation for hepatoblastoma during the last two decades increased 20-fold between 1988 and 2010, with 153 liver transplants occurring in the last 5 years, and hepatoblastoma surpassed other inoperable liver malignancies requiring liver transplantation from 2.8 percent to 7.5 percent.
 
“For several years, it has been recognized that many children with hepatoblastoma were born early. Advances in the care of premature babies, and their increased survival as a result, is an important reason for the increased incidence of this tumor,” said Dr. Sindhi.
 
Estimates suggest that more than six in 10 children with hepatoblastoma can be cured with surgical removal of the mass after chemotherapy. Liver transplantation is appropriate if the tumor is confined to the liver, but cannot be removed safely because of its location or involvement of many parts of the liver. Three of four children treated with transplantation can be cured.
 
Recurrences usually occur within the first two years after transplantation in one-sixth of children undergoing liver transplantation. Recurrences are more common if the liver tumor was accompanied by spread to other organs before transplantation, or if the tumor was less responsive to chemotherapy. Remarkably, if the tumor outside the liver is removed completely with either chemotherapy or surgery before transplantation is undertaken, half of such children can still be cured with liver transplantation. In this regard, hepatoblastoma tumors are very different from the liver cancer that can develop in adult and older age groups. They also found that hepatoblastoma tumors with “anaplastic” or highly aggressive tumor cells were less likely to recur after liver transplantation than what has been reported previously after surgical resection.
 
For more information on Dr. Sindhi and the Hillman Center for Pediatric Transplantation, please visit www.chp.edu/transplant.
category: Pediatrics
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Pitt-UPMC Program Guides Expansion of Telemedicine Use in Pediatric Emergencies

Posted by andrewsj3 on Friday, March 1st 2013     
PITTSBURGH, March 1, 2013 – When a child ends up in an emergency room at one of Pennsylvania’s rural hospitals, the emergency doctor has a tough decision to make – treat the child there with limited pediatric expertise or send him or her to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, often hundreds of miles from home.
 
A new University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences project will use telemedicine to make the decision easier. On Monday, March 4, a team of doctors, scientists and emergency, pediatric and rural health officials will  launch “Optimizing Utilization and Rural Emergency Access for Children,” or OUTREACH, a project designed to make telemedicine more effective in pediatric emergencies.
 
“About a quarter of all pediatric emergency visits are to hospitals in rural areas, yet these hospitals rarely possess the equipment, experience and expertise necessary to provide effective emergency care to children,” said  Jeremy Kahn, M.D., M.S., project leader and associate professor of critical care, medicine and health policy at Pitt’s School of Medicine and Graduate School of Public Health. “Our goal is to make it quick and easy for rural emergency doctors to consult with pediatric specialists at UPMC to determine the best treatment plan for each child.”
 
The project is paid for with a nearly $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration. It is designed to address critical deficiencies in pediatric emergency care reported in the

Institute of Medicine’s “Emergency Care for Children: Growing Pains.”

 

 
Dr. Kahn and his team will interview hospital administrators, physicians, nurses, emergency transport personnel, patients and families to identify issues surrounding pediatric emergency care and potential obstacles to using telemedicine in rural hospitals.
 
That information will then be used to craft a standardized educational program to help these hospitals best use telemedicine to improve pediatric emergency care through consultations with Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh specialists. The team will then partner with the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, which oversees the state’s Medicaid program, to evaluate the effects of the program.
 
If successful, the program could be used as a model for pediatric emergency care nationwide.
 
“Our goal is to reduce unnecessary transfers while providing the same level of world-class service using telemedicine that our patients receive when they come directly to the Children’s campus,” said Harun Rashid, vice president of global health services and chief information officer at Children’s Hospital.
 
Kobe Long, 2, of Washington in Washington County, has cerebral palsy and has been helped twice in the last year by telemedicine. Both times involved breathing problems for which Kobe’s mother, Christa Bolen, had taken him to Washington Hospital.
 
“Having the doctors examine him with telemedicine was different – but very easy,” she said. “You didn’t have to try to explain what was happening over the phone. The doctors at Children’s could see for themselves and decide on the best treatment.”
 
In Kobe’s case, the doctors determined that he needed to be flown by medical helicopter to Children’s Hospital, where they were able to quickly intubate him and stabilize his breathing.
 
In addition to improving care and saving lives, the program could cut down on unnecessary travel for children and their families, as well as reduce medical costs.
 
“There is an inherent value in keeping a sick or injured child in his or her community when possible,” Dr. Kahn said. “They can recover with their family and friends close by and avoid excessive disruption to their family’s routine.”
 
In the last year, more than 400 children were transferred from a rural emergency department to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh – a journey that can involve several hours of travel time – only to be immediately discharged back to their communities. If these children were triaged via telemedicine, $800,000 could have been saved, according to data collected from the Children’s Hospital Emergency Department.
 
Initially, the OUTREACH program will be in five rural hospitals: UPMC Northwest Hospital in Seneca, Venango County; UPMC Horizon Hospital in Farrell, Mercer County; Washington Hospital in Washington, Washington County; Armstrong County Memorial Hospital in Kittanning, Armstrong County; and DuBois Regional Medical Center in DuBois, Clearfield County.
 
More hospitals will be recruited as the project progresses.
 
A key component to the OUTREACH program is an in-depth plan to evaluate its impact on health care access, mortality rates, injury rates and health care costs.
 
“Our intent is to provide unbiased data on the program’s accomplishments to inform efforts to replicate system-wide emergency care improvements in other areas,” Dr. Kahn said.
category: Pediatrics
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Children’s Hospital/Pitt-Led Team Finds Molecule That Polices TB Lung Infection, Could Lead to Effective Vaccine

Posted by andrewsj3 on Wednesday, January 2nd 2013     
PITTSBURGH, Jan. 2, 2013 – The presence of a certain molecule allows the immune system to effectively police tuberculosis (TB) of the lungs and prevent it from turning into an active and deadly infection, according to a new study led by researchers at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Their findings appear today in the online version of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
 
More than 2 billion people or one-third of the world’s population are infected with mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes TB, said senior author Shabaana A. Khader, Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics, Pitt School of Medicine. The infection is challenging to treat partly because the bacillus is able to enter cells and linger for years without causing symptoms, known as latent TB. Then, typically when the immune system becomes impaired due to other reasons such as age or HIV, the infection becomes active and causes the cough, night sweats, fever and weight loss that characterize the disease.
 
“A hallmark of TB that we see on chest X-rays is the granuloma, a collection of immune cells that surround the infected lung cells,” Dr. Khader said. “But what we didn’t know was the difference between a functioning protective granulomae, as in latent TB, and a non-protective granuloma seen in active TB patients. We aimed to find immunologic markers that could show us the status of the infection.”
 
For the study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the researchers studied human TB-infected cells as well animal models of the disease. They found that granulomas that contain ectopic lymphoid structures, which resemble lymph nodes, are associated with effective suppression of TB, and that granulomas that don’t contain them are associated with active TB. They also learned that immune cells called T cells that had a surface marker molecule called CXCR5 were associated with the presence of ectopic lymphoid structures.
 
It’s akin to reporting a break-in, Dr. Khader said. If a person calls 911 because of a robbery, but doesn’t give a specific address, the immune system police could come to the neighborhood but don’t know for certain which home was invaded.
 
“The presence of CXCR5 provides a specific address for the infected cells that tells the immune cells where to focus their attention to contain the problem,” she explained. “That results in the formation of ectopic lymphoid structures and the protective granuloma that keeps TB infection under control, unlike in active disease. Without CXCR5, those structures did not form and active TB was more likely.”
 
When the researchers delivered CXCR5 T cells from donor animals to TB-infected mice that lacked CXCR5, T cell localization and ectopic lymphoid structure formation was restored, leading to decreased susceptibility to TB.
 
“The protective power of CXCR5 points us in a novel direction for future management of TB,” Dr. Khader said. “These findings have powerful implications for the development of vaccines to prevent infection.”
 
Co-authors include other researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC; the University of Rochester Medical Center; Tulane National Primate Research Center; Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias “Ismael Cosio Villegas,” Mexico; “National Institute of Psychiatry “Ramon de la Fuente,” Mexico; and The American British Cowdray Medical Center, Mexico.
 
The study was funded NIH grants AI083541, HL105427, RR026006, AI091457, RR020159, RR000164, HL69409, AI060422, and AI91036 as well as Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.
category: Pediatrics
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5th Annual Master Class in Congenital Cardiac Morphology

Posted by UPMC Physician Resources on Monday, September 17th 2012     

October 10, 11, and 12, 2012
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
John G. Rangos Sr. Conference Center
Pittsburgh, Pa.

Join us for the 5th Annual Master Class in Congenital Cardiac Morphology with world renowned cardiac pathologist, Professor Robert Anderson, MD, FRCPath. This comprehensive two-and-a-half day course will use didactic presentations, live video demonstrations, and hands-on examination of cardiac specimens to cover a wide range of congenital cardiac malformations. There will be an emphasis on imaging and surgical correlations of each lesion. This year, the Master Class and Hands-on Workshop will focus on left-to-right shunts.

Topics include:

  • Morphology of the normal heart
  • Sequential segmental analysis
  • Interatrial communications
  • Ventricular septal defects
  • Atrioventricular septal defects
  • Unbalanced Atrioventricular septal defect
  • Patent arterial duct
  • Aorto-pulmonary window

Upon completion of the class, participants will understand the usefulness and practicality of the sequential segmental analytical approach to the examination of congenitally malformed hearts, as well as be familiar with the morphology of a large variety of congenital heart defects.

Who Should Attend
This conference is designed for seasons, junior, and trainee cardiologists; cardiothoracic surgeons; pathologists; pathology assistants; cardiac morphologists; echocardiography sonographers; and other medical professionals interested in congenital heart disease.

Course Directors
Professor Robert H. Anderson, MD, FRCPath
Visiting Professor, Pediatrics
Medical University of South Carolina
Steven A. Webber, MBChB, MRCP
Pediatrician-In-Chief
James C. Overall Professor and Chair, Department of Pediatrics
Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt

Vivke Allada, MD
Interim Chief, Division of Pediatric Cardiology
Co-Director, Heart Institute
Clinical Director, Pediatric Cardiology
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC

Continuing Education Credit
The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine designates this live activity for a maximum of 16.25 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM. Each physician should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Other health care professionals are awarded 1.6 continuing education units (CEU’s) which are equal to 16.25 contact hours.

Learn more about the conference and register online.

category: Heart & Vascular, Pediatrics, UPMC

Amniotic Fluid Could be Elixir that Prevents Deadly Gut Inflammation in Preemies

Posted by andrewsj3 on Monday, June 25th 2012     
PITTSBURGH, June 25 – Lack of exposure to amniotic fluid could be the reason that preterm infants are more susceptible to the gastrointestinal inflammatory disease known as necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), according to researchers at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In an early online report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they show that feeding amniotic fluid to young mice reduced the risk of NEC in an experimental model, suggesting new therapeutic avenues for warding off the deadly condition.
Senior author David Hackam, M.D., Ph.D., Watson Family Professor of Surgery, Department of Surgery, Pitt School of Medicine, and co-director of the Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment Center at Children’s Hospital, noted that NEC is the leading cause of death from gastrointestinal disease in babies, and most commonly affects those who are born six to eight weeks too early. Twelve to 15 percent of all premature babies develop NEC.
 
“The disease occurs when these tiny babies are about two to three weeks of age,” he said. “At first, they are a little sick, but seem OK. Then, often without warning, they stop tolerating their feeds, their bellies become swollen and, in many cases, they become critically ill within hours. When I operate on them, I see patches of dead intestinal tissue that needs to be removed. It is devastating for families.”
 
The causes of NEC are not well understood, he added. In previous research, his team determined that a molecular switch called Toll-lie receptor 4 (TLR4) was turned on in intestinal tissue affected by NEC. Healthy infants born at term have relatively low levels of TLR4 in the gut. The protein is important in fending off infection because it is involved in the recognition of bacteria, leading the researchers to posit that unlike in healthy newborns, something goes wrong with the TLR4 response when preemies get colonized with normal gut flora.
 
“One big difference between a 34-week-old baby developing in its mother’s uterus and one in the neonatal intensive care unit is that the first one is floating in and swallowing amniotic fluid,” Dr. Hackam said. “Early delivery means that exposure to the fluid is gone, so we speculated that components of the fluid could help prevent NEC by keeping TLR4 in check.”

 In the study, the researchers showed that injecting small amounts of amniotic fluid into the intestine of premature mice, or feeding the fluid to them, stopped NEC from developing. That’s because the fluid is rich in epidermal growth factor (EGF), a wound healing protein; when the researchers removed it from the fluid or blocked or removed the EGF receptor on intestinal cells, amniotic fluid no longer had a protective effect.

 “It appears that EGF in amniotic fluid is able to shut off TLR4 activity and prevent NEC,” Dr. Hackam said. “Perhaps if we one day banked amniotic fluid after premature delivery, we could give it to newborns at risk for the problem. We also could identify a drug that inhibits TLR4 activity to try to save these babies.”

 
The research team includes lead author Misty Good, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; and others from Children’s Hospital and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
 
The study was funded by National Institutes of Health grants R01GM078238 and RO1DK08752, and by the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation and the Hartwell Foundation.
category: Pediatrics, UPMC
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Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC’s Brain Care Institute Receives Prestigious Award for First-of-its-kind Study of Peptide Vaccine

Posted by andrewsj3 on Tuesday, June 19th 2012     
PITTSBURGH, June 19, 2012 – The Congress of Neurological Surgeons has announced that Ian F. Pollack, M.D., F.A.C.S., F.A.A.P., chief, Pediatric Neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC’s Brain Care Institute and co-director of University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) Brain Tumor Program will receive the National Brain Tumor Society’s Mahaley Clinical Research Award for his paper, “Peptide Vaccine Therapy for Childhood Gliomas: Interim Results of a Pilot Study.”
 
The award will be presented at the 2012 Congress of Neurological Surgeons annual meeting in Chicago, Oct. 6 to 10.
 
The first-of-its-kind study demonstrated that peptide vaccines in children with gliomas, the most common type of brain tumor, not only were well-tolerated but also showed evidence of immunological responses. Preliminary results of the study were presented at the 2012 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting.
 
“With so many medically outstanding studies published this year in neuro-oncology, I am grateful and honored our research was selected for recognition by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons,” said Dr. Pollack, the Walter Dandy Professor of Neurological Surgery and vice chairman for academic affairs in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “This was the first study of its type that examined peptide vaccine therapy for children with brain tumors like this, and the fact that we are now seeing tumor shrinkage is extremely encouraging in moving forward with this therapy.”
 
Pollack and his colleagues enrolled 32 children with gliomas, including 18 with newly diagnosed brainstem gliomas, five with newly diagnosed cerebral high-grade gliomas and nine with recurrent gliomas. Each child received serial doses of a peptide vaccine, which was designed to stimulate an immune response to a protein fragment present on their tumor cells. They are now hoping to advance this to a multicenter study within the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium.
 
The Mahaley Clinical Research Award is given at each of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurological Surgeons meetings to a neurosurgery resident, fellow, or attending who has submitted the top clinical study in neuro-oncology.
 
The Congress of Neurological Surgeons, a leader in education and innovation, is dedicated to advancing neurosurgery by providing members with the educational and career development opportunities they need to become leaders and innovators in the field.
 
For more information about Dr. Pollack, visit www.chp.edu
category: Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, UPMC
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Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC Chief Appointed President of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology

Posted by andrewsj3 on Thursday, June 14th 2012     

PITTSBURGH, June 14 – A. Kim Ritchey, M.D., chief, Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, has been named president of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (ASPHO).

Dr. Ritchey will focus the work of the society on its primary mission of promoting optimal care of children and adolescents with blood disorders and cancer by advancing research education, treatment and professional practice. He will be responsible for developing a robust mission-directed system of reporting and accountability that will decrease overlap of committee responsibilities, improve communication with the board and its members, and keep a targeted focus on the organization’s mission. In addition, he will develop a robust international outreach program to include pediatric hematologist/oncologists from around the world. He succeeds Jeffrey Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., chief, Hematology/Oncology at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York.

“I am honored to be named the new president of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and look forward to leading this national organization and furthering its mission,” said Dr. Ritchey, also professor of pediatrics and vice chair for clinical affairs in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “Treatment for childhood cancer and blood diseases has come a long way in the last 50 years and I am ready to take on the task to advance this crucial education and research.”
“I am both elated with the progress we have made during the past two years and even more pleased in the knowledge that Dr. Ritchey will undoubtedly far surpass anything that has already been accomplished,” said Dr. Lipton.

In addition, Dr. Ritchey is the principal investigator at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh for the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), which is the only pediatric clinical trials organization funded by the National Cancer Institute. In his position, he is responsible for overseeing clinical research trials in different types of childhood malignancy. The COG currently has more than 75 active clinical research trials for children with cancer. Children’s Hospital is one of only 20 select institutions within the COG that has approval to perform experimental studies with new drugs and treatments for children with cancer, also known as Phase I studies.

The ASPHO is the primary professional organization for pediatric hematologists/oncologists in North America. It is a multidisciplinary organization dedicated to promoting optimal care of children and adolescents with blood disorders and cancer by advancing research, education, treatment and professional practice, was begun in 1974 by those who had a commitment to pediatric hematology/oncology. There are approximately 1,700 members in the society.

For more information on Dr. Ritchey, please visit www.chp.edu.

category: Cancer, Pediatrics, UPMC
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