171 Ashley Ave.
Charleston, SC 29425
843-792-1414
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February 2009
This edition:
Teen Thrives Despite Differences
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"I do what normal kids do, I just have to sanitize my hands about every other minute," says the 17-year-old Lexington High senior.
The exaggeration makes her mother chuckle. "She has to wash her hands a lot, but not that often," smiles Robin Jennings.
Keeping her immunity low so her body won't reject the "new" organs and the problems that go with that will always be a challenge for Ashley, says her mom. "It's still stressful when her numbers are out of whack - that will always be a part of her life."
[read more]
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Dear faculty, Children's Hospital staff and other friends,
As many of you know, we were recently informed that our state allocation has dwindled down to 40 percent of last year's appropriation. This has caused us to have to consider the possibility of reducing services and/or faculty. Of course, in typical MUSC spirit, we have had a number of people provide much needed support by raising money or by giving back to the department by offering up to 10 percent of their income for this year. We are so grateful for their dedication and generosity.
[read more]
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MUSC is in the unique position of being the only transplantation center in the state of South Carolina. This is the case for solid organ transplant (kidney, liver and pancreas), cardiac transplant and bone marrow transplant. It represents an important responsibility for our institution and is an opportunity that is not available in most areas where Certificates of Need may allow multiple competing transplant centers. Our unique market position must be translated into excellence in outcomes and follow-up in order to best serve the people of our state. So a legitimate question to ask is: "Has the MUSC Children's Hospital fulfilled its responsibilities in the area of transplant?"
[read more]
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South Carolina's Children's Transplant Center
When organ or bone marrow transplants are necessary for children, the MUSC Children's Hospital is ready to assist. The Children's Hospital is able to provide heart, kidney, liver and bone marrow transplants. As Dr. Saul mentioned in his article, it is the only pediatric facility able to do so in the state of South Carolina. MUSC sees children from across the state and from many areas of the country needing these valuable services.
[read more]
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Research on Renal Disease Progresses
In Dr. Darwin Bell's Laboratory of Renal Biology in the Darby Children's Research Institute, 12 researchers are intent on making sure kids like Ashley Jennings (see feature story, above) are spared the agony of polycystic kidney disease (PKD).
[read more]
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Renal Transplants for Children: Guidelines
What are the indications for renal transplants for children? Perhaps a good place to look for the answer would be in practice guidelines. We have several places to look for these, including professionals and nonprofit society web pages. However, both the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) and PubMed offer quick and easy ways to find them. Then, of course, we must satisfy ourselves that these guidelines are based on evidence rather than expert opinion.
[read more]
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The Obesity Problem
The NHANES data from 1976-80 until 2003-06 has shown obesity in America to be increasing at an alarming rate in every age category. Children 2-5 years old from 5.0 percent to 12.4 percent; children 6-11 years old from 6.5 percent to 17.0 percent; adolescents 12-19 years old from 5.0 percent to 17.6 percent; and finally, adults 15.0 percent to 34.0 percent. More than doubling our girth in just over two decades has had incredible consequences on our health and healthcare costs. In South Carolina alone, the medical costs of overweight and obesity were estimated to be $1,060,000,000 in 2000.
[read more]
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New Brain Map Provides Clues for Treatment of Lazy-Eye
Dr. Prakash Kara's laboratory in the DCRI is using a new, high-resolution brain imaging technology to observe the individual brain cells that are activated by monocular and binocular (depth) stimuli.
The findings, reported in the advance online January 21 issue of Nature, shed new light on the functional organization of cortical circuits that mediate binocular vision. Dr. Kara, an assistant professor of neurosciences working in the Darby Children's Research Institute, hopes the discovery will eventually lead to new treatments for pediatric disorders including lazy eye (amblyopia).
According to the National Eye Institute, amblyopia is the most common cause of visual impairment in children. Because the connections from eye to brain are rewired and refined in early childhood, any alteration is detrimental to a child's ability to perceive the world and interact.
"Restoring function to the compromised circuits in the childhood brain begins with understanding how binocular inputs are processed in the normal, healthy infant brain," says Dr. Kara.
With funding from the National Eye Institute, Dr. Kara's team has shown that the activated brain cells are not scattered across the brain randomly, but organized in a precise functional map. This map encodes binocular depth information and aligns itself with another brain map, which signals the relative strength of visual inputs arriving at each eye. The arrangement of the two maps provides an important clue as to how local circuits in the brain process multiple sensory features in the environment.
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A special thanks to the following individuals for their efforts in putting together Kids Connection each month.
Editor-in-Chief: Bernard L. Maria, MD/MBA
Editorial Assistant: Jennifer Cherock, Trio Solutions, Inc.
Publishers: Brian Dadin, Roxanne Hicks, Trio Solutions, Inc.
Feature Writer: Mary Sue Lawrence
Contributing Writers:
Lyndon Key,
Bernard Maria,
Philip Saul,
John Sanders,
Laura Cousineau,
Mary Joan Oexmann
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