Blog | Page 41 of 159 | Boston Children's Answers

We didn’t give up hope: Emily’s fighting chance with her lung transplant

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Veronica Giarla | Patient Stories

Tags: complex care, interstitial lung disease, pulmonary hypertension, transplant

Emily lights up every room she’s in with her giggles and confidence — not to mention her sparkly painted nails and glittery makeup. At 6 years old, she’s able to win people over with her bright smile and electric personality. All this is made possible because Emily was given the gift of life — an ... Read More

Tagged: complex care, interstitial lung disease, pulmonary hypertension, transplant

Study shows young adults don’t easily transition to self-care of diabetes

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Albert McKeon | Basic/Translational, Research

Tags: diabetes, emergency medicine, endocrinology, research

Diabetes is challenging to manage at any age, but even more so for young adults who are handling the condition on their own for the first time. They need to transition from pediatric to adult care as smoothly as possible — but a recent study finds this isn’t happening. Research led by Katharine Garvey, MD, MPH, ... Read More

Tagged: diabetes, emergency medicine, endocrinology, research

Girls and women in sports win the medal of lifelong health

Posted on April 6, 2023 by Joanne Barker | Research

Tags: female athletes, orthopedics, sports medicine

Title IX, the law that prohibits sports discrimination on the basis of sex, has transformed sports for girls and women. Before its passage in 1972, only 295,000 female athletes participated in U.S. high school sports. Today that number is 3.2 million. In that same period, the number of female college athletes swelled from 30,000 to ... Read More

Tagged: female athletes, orthopedics, sports medicine

How Robin sequence paved a dad’s road to the Boston Marathon: Chad and Izzy’s story

Posted on April 6, 2023 by Katie Paradis | Events, Patient Stories

Tags: cleft palate, craniofacial, feeding therapy, nicu, physical therapy, Robin sequence

Go to any marathon starting line and you’re bound to find someone who was “never a runner” until something — or someone — motivated them to tie up their laces. Chad Goyette is one such runner. But today, he’s fresh off the Atlanta Marathon and gearing up to run Boston. His inspiration? His daughter, Izzy. ... Read More

Tagged: cleft palate, craniofacial, feeding therapy, nicu, physical therapy, Robin sequence

Going out of the box to tackle pancreatic cancer

Posted on April 6, 2023 by Nancy Fliesler | Basic/Translational, Research

Tags: cancer, cellular and molecular medicine, drug development, endocrinology, immunotherapy, metabolism, vascular biology

Pancreatic cancers are deadly and hard to treat, in part because they are so often detected at an advanced stage; overall five-year survival rates are about 11 percent. Two separate labs at Boston Children’s Hospital took out-of-the-box approaches to this difficult cancer, and both uncovered some very promising leads. Wiping out pancreatic tumors’ immune defense ... Read More

Tagged: cancer, cellular and molecular medicine, drug development, endocrinology, immunotherapy, metabolism, vascular biology

Spring into good health: Tips for allergies, poison ivy, and tick bites

Posted on April 5, 2023 by Albert McKeon | Health and Parenting

Tags: allergy, asthma, primary care

Spring is here — and so are allergies, poison ivy, and ticks carrying Lyme disease. But that doesn’t mean your family shouldn’t embrace springtime. Here are some tips to help your child best control allergies and avoid (and treat, if necessary) poison ivy and tick bites. Simple steps and home remedies can tame allergies Managing spring allergies doesn’t have ... Read More

Tagged: allergy, asthma, primary care

Could gene therapy relieve post-hemorrhagic hydrocephalus?

Posted on March 30, 2023 by Nancy Fliesler | Basic/Translational, Research

Tags: blood, gene therapy, genetics and genomics, hydrocephalus, neuroscience, neurosurgery, newborn medicine, prematurity

Premature infants, especially very low birthweight babies, are at risk for intraventricular hemorrhage. A frequent complication of these brain bleeds is hydrocephalus, an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the brain ventricles that can gravely disrupt brain development. If hydrocephalus develops, a child may need shunt operations throughout life to manage the fluid buildup. Could ... Read More

Tagged: blood, gene therapy, genetics and genomics, hydrocephalus, neuroscience, neurosurgery, newborn medicine, prematurity

A promising target for ALS and other neurodegenerative disorders: Curbing inflammation

Posted on March 28, 2023 by Nancy Fliesler | Basic/Translational, Research

Tags: immunology, neuroinflammation, neurology, neuroscience

When cells recognize a danger, such as an infection, they activate the innate immune system. Sentinel molecules sound an alarm, recruiting immune cells to take down the threat. In 2016, Judy Lieberman, MD, PhD and her colleagues at Boston Children’s Hospital showed that a protein called gasdermin D initiates a final, decisive step: pyroptosis, a ... Read More

Tagged: immunology, neuroinflammation, neurology, neuroscience

‘The teamwork is outstanding’: A look inside the Colorectal and Pelvic Malformation Center

Posted on March 27, 2023 by Jessica Cerretani | Clinical Care

Tags: colorectal and pelvic malformations, nephrology, surgery, urology

In honor of Women’s History Month, we sat down with some of the clinicians in Boston Children’s Colorectal and Pelvic Malformation Center (CPMC), one of the only centers of its kind led and staffed primarily by women. Here’s what they had to say about their work, their patients — and their hopes for the future. ... Read More

Tagged: colorectal and pelvic malformations, nephrology, surgery, urology

Why do so many dementia treatments fail? Questioning mouse models of tau accumulation

Posted on March 22, 2023 by Nancy Fliesler | Basic/Translational, Research

Tags: alzheimers disease, drug development, neuroscience

To date, the search for effective treatments for dementia has yielded only disappointments. Many recent drug candidates target the tau protein, which aggregates and forms tangles in patients’ brain tissue and is involved in 75 percent of all dementias. While tau-targeting drugs have looked promising in mouse models, they’ve failed in clinical trials. A recent ... Read More

Tagged: alzheimers disease, drug development, neuroscience