Month: May 2020

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.May 29 2020 Scientific studies suggest that children with birth defects are at increased risk of cancer. However, it has not been assessed whether the type of cancer, the age at which they are diagnosed or the extent of cancer spread at the time of diagnosis, is different for children with

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.May 30 2020 Two University of Cincinnati students have developed an interactive dashboard that shows COVID-19 cases and deaths in Greater Cincinnati and other major U.S. cities. Known asthe COVID-19 Watcher, it joins a list of options available to the public to track the novel coronavirus. Benjamin Wissel, a student at

May 30 2020 The first global analysis of existing scientific studies related to COVID-19 and newborn babies highlights that it is uncommon for babies aged up to four weeks old to become infected with the virus, with recorded cases experiencing only mild symptoms and making a full recovery. From an analysis considering over 200 papers,

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.May 29 2020 Scientists from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) developed an experimental diagnostic test for COVID-19 that can visually detect the presence of the virus in 10 minutes. It uses a simple assay containing plasmonic gold nanoparticles to detect a color change when the virus is present.

May 29 2020 An individualied and family-based physical activity and dietary intervention reduced the plasma LDL cholesterol concentration of primary school children, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows. The findings of the Physical Activity and Nutrition in Children (PANIC) Study ongoing at the University of Eastern Finland were published in the

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.May 27 2020 Black non-Hispanic and Hispanic women with opioid use disorder (OUD) are significantly less likely to receive or to consistently use any medication to treat their opioid use disorder during pregnancy than their white non-Hispanic counterparts, according to a new study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Based on a

A transgenic mouse developed at Cincinnati Children’s to model the deadly childhood immune disease HLH (hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis) may play a key role in saving lives during the COVID-19 virus pandemic. One of the genetically engineered mouse strain’s inventors–Cincinnati Children’s cancer pathologist Gang Huang, PhD– is co-investigator on a small clinical trial that successfully tested a

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.May 27 2020 A joint program of UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Health has been approved as a Certified Duchenne Care Center (CDCC) by Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD), the nation’s most comprehensive nonprofit organization focused on finding a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The UTSW/Children’s Health collaboration, which involves

A recent study among 3- to 7-year-old children showed that children’s motor skills benefitted if a child was older and participated in organized sports. Additionally, the study provided information about the importance of temperament traits for motor skills. More specifically, traits such as activity and attention span persistence were found to be positively associated with

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.May 26 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the social, educational and health care disparities already plaguing the nearly 40 million Americans the U.S. Census Bureau estimates are living in poverty. Perhaps the hardest hit members of that population, say three pediatricians at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and Children’s National Hospital,

The current COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic in March 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO). This led to the enforcement of a lockdown on an almost global scale with wide-ranging consequences. Now, a new Danish study by researchers at the Statens Serum Institut and Rigshospitalet and published on the preprint server medRxiv* in

Plant products ingested by pregnant women through their diet are broken down by the intestinal microbiota into chemical substances, some of which can cross the placental barrier and reach the fetus. These foreign substances can harm the unborn child, even if they are of “natural origin”. Researchers at the Department for BioMedical Research (DBMR) at

Children’s National Hospital is establishing a regional pediatric telehealth consortium in response to coronavirus with $928,000 in funding awarded by the Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau. The funding, which is part of the FCC’s COVID-19 Telehealth Program, enables the nationally-ranked pediatric hospital to expand its telehealth platform to support 15 healthcare sites in the

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has marched its way to almost all parts of the world, with hundreds of thousands of deaths and over 4.5 million cases as of May 15, 2020. One saving grace has been the apparent sparing of children, though the mortality in older people is quite high. A new paper published on

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.May 22 2020 Babies with Hirschsprung’s disease are born with an incomplete or absent gut nervous system. Children’s Hospital Los Angeles investigator Tracy Grikscheit, MD, runs a laboratory that investigates the therapeutic potential of tissue engineering – the induced growth of healthy tissue using stem cells. In a new study, Dr.

Casa de Salud, a nonprofit clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, provides primary medical care, opioid addiction services and non-Western therapies, including acupuncture and reiki, to a largely low-income population. And, like so many other health care providers that serve as a safety net, its revenue — and its future — are threatened by the COVID-19

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.May 21 2020 In the first 30 days since seeing their first patient, the number of children testing positive to COVID-19 at an Australian tertiary pediatric hospital has been low and none who contracted the virus required in-hospital treatment, according to a new study. The research, led by the Murdoch Children’s

While most children infected with the novel coronavirus have mild symptoms, a subset requires hospitalization and a small number require intensive care. A new report from pediatric anesthesiologists, infectious disease specialists and pediatricians at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore (CHAM) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, describes the clinical characteristics and outcomes of children hospitalized