Children’s of Alabama PedsCast

Lung injury is a common complication in children following cardiac surgery. Mechanical ventilation is often required to support patients for hours to days in the intensive care unit. The severity of lung injury can vary by patient. Being able to predict which patient are at a higher risk of requiring respiratory support due to worse lung injury is crucial. Our heart center is the first in the nation to report the discovery of a novel blood biomarker for lung injury following heart surgery. Using our heart center biorepository we identified and validated the finding of the new biomarker “Proteoglycan 4” and its correlation with lung injury. In order to validate this finding, a large number of patients need to be tested. Funding from the Hope Fund is supporting the costs of these tests. It is anticipated that if the initial results are correct, cardiac intensivists will be able to predict who is at higher risk for lung injury and adjust their management to minimize the injury which can last lifetime.

Dr. Jonathan Byrnes is an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Medical Director of Cardiac ECMO, at Children's of Alabama. During this episode of PedsCast, Dr. Byrnes will discuss the unique aspects of a multicenter anticoagulation study and the use of bivalirudin in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

Traci Jester, M.D. is the director of Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Children’s of Alabama and is an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Jester serves as the Co-Director of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinic Chair of Pediatric Affairs Committee for Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. Recently, the Foundation received a grant from the CDC to support a comprehensive 5-year project partnering with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to identify and address barriers to diagnosis and care of patients with inflammatory bowel disease, especially the experience of African American patients. The study will be conducted at the Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease clinic at Children's of Alabama as well as the UAB Gastroenterology Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinic. In this PedsCast, Dr. Jester will talk about the 3 components of the study which include research, focus groups and dissemination of resources to the community to raise awareness about IBD and highlight the importance of timely referrals to gastroenterologists.

Carmen Tong, D.O., is the director of robotic surgery at Children's of Alabama and Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). On this episode of PedsCast, Dr. Tong discusses a quality improvement (QI) project on adherence to follow-up after kidney stone surgery in children. This QI project investigates the association between demographic factors and stone presentation characteristics to see if certain populations are more likely to come back for their postoperative visit. Long term follow up is important for pediatric kidney stones, because first time stone formers are 50% more likely to form stones in the first 3 years.

Dr. Kevin Williams is an orthopedic surgeon at Children’s of Alabama and Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Dr. Williams’ clinical interests are in general pediatric orthopedic surgery with emphasis in pediatric sports medicine. During this PedsCast episode, Dr. Williams will discuss a current study focusing on elbow fractures.

Dr. Michael Siefert is the Medical Director of Pediatric Renal Transplantation at Children's of Alabama and UAB. Today Dr. Seifert will be discussing pediatric kidney transplantation and the risks involved, as well as how Children's of Alabama is a national leader in kidney transplantation.

Wendy Landier, PhD, CRNP, FAAN, serves as Associate Professor, School of Nursing Associate Director, Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship for UAB. Dr. Landier's practice at Children's of Alabama is in the Hematology/Oncology Division.

Dr. Landier has provided two studies about the HPV vaccine in cancer survivors. The first study showed that HPV vaccination rates in cancer survivors are significantly lower than those in the healthy age-matched population. The primary reason for that is lack of healthcare provider recommendation for the vaccine.

Dr. Landier also tested the HPV vaccine in survivors and found that the 3-dose HPV vaccine series is safe and has a similar immunogenicity profile to that seen in the age-matched general population.

The second study, currently in progress, is testing the effectiveness and evaluating the implementation of a healthcare provider-directed intervention known as “HPV PROTECT” in increasing HPV vaccination rates in cancer survivors.

The Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN) program is designed to advance medical research on rare diseases by providing support for clinical studies and facilitating collaboration, study enrollment and data sharing. Through the RDCRN consortia, physician scientists and their multidisciplinary teams work together with patient advocacy groups to study nearly 200 rare diseases at sites across the nation.