Genomics England, a government owned company, recently announced a pilot programme of whole genome sequencing to screen for genetic diseases in 200,000 healthy seeming newborns. But should every newborn baby have their whole genome sequenced? Experts debate the issue in The BMJ. Extensive clinical evidence has shown that screening for genetic diseases saves lives, and research has shown that it…
“An artificial uterus – the incubator 2.0 – will become a reality within 10 years,” says Jasmijn Kok, one of the founders of Juno, a spin-off from the Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands. Together with researchers from the department of Industrial Design from the University, including her twin sister Lyla Kok, she wants to bring a technology that increases the chances of…
Long COVID symptoms rarely persisted beyond 12 weeks in children and adolescents unlike adults.
Extremely premature infants are at a high risk for brain damage. Researchers at the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna have now found possible targets for the early treatment of such damage outside the brain: Bacteria in the gut of premature infants may play a key role.
A major UK clinical trial led by Queen’s University Belfast has shown how a new approach to reduce the use of mechanical ventilation can greatly improve outcomes for critically ill infants and children. The study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Programme, found that a greater involvement of nurses, minimising sedation use and increasing daily…
"You hear the noises, but they don't bother you at all": Since 2019, the “Pengunaut Trainer" has been preparing children for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations through role play. The app was developed under the leadership of the University Duisburg-Essen (UDE) and the Essen University Hospital (UK Essen).
The net benefit of vaccinating children is unclear, and vulnerable people worldwide should be prioritised instead, say experts in The BMJ today. But others argue that Covid-19 vaccines have been approved for some children and that children should not be disadvantaged because of policy choices that impede global vaccination.
Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, after whom the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology in Utrecht is named, along with several representatives of the center, the Hopp Children’s Cancer Center Heidelberg (KiTZ), University Hospital Heidelberg (UKHD) and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), signed a memorandum on strategic cooperation in the field of pediatric oncology in Europe at…
Higher levels of vaccination against COVID-19 were associated with lower rates of infection with SARS-CoV-2 among a group of unvaccinated people of 16 years of age and under.
Physicians are increasingly using software to automatically evaluate Holter ECG signals in adult patients, but so far, no software has been developed for children. Cardiomatics and the Medical University of Warsaw are on the way to a breakthrough in paediatric cardiology. They are developing an international tool for automatic assessment, analysis, and interpretation of electrocardiographic…
Determining safe yet effective drug dosages for children is an ongoing challenge for pharmaceutical companies and medical doctors alike. To make drugs and their development safer for children, researchers at Aalto University and the pharmaceutical company Novartis have developed a method that makes better use of available data.
A new photonics device currently in development aims to reduce unnecessary disabilities by improving the instant, real-time monitoring of newborn babies with harmless light particles.
Every year, millions of children around the world are admitted to hospital for having anaesthesia and surgery. Many of them experience preoperative anxiety which negatively affects both their hospital experience and medical outcome, as well as their future relationships with healthcare services from both a short-term and long-term point of view. A new, internationally aimed website offers…
Stefan Pfister, a director of the Hopp Children’s Cancer Center Heidelberg (KiTZ), a department head at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and a pediatric oncologist at University Hospital Heidelberg (UKHD), has received the Léopold Griffuel Award from Fondation ARC, the French cancer research foundation. The prize, worth EUR 150,000 in Basic Research category, is one of the highest…
MRI scanning can more precisely define and detect head, neck, thoracic, abdominal and spinal malformations in unborn babies, finds a large multidisciplinary study led by King’s College London with Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London (UCL). In the study, published in Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, the team of researchers and…
Working in intensive care units poses special challenges for healthcare workers. They have to safely and reliably detect whether the condition of their seriously ill patients is deteriorating in a life-threatening way, and they have to do so under great time pressure because every minute counts. The stress level increases even more when the patients are children and adolescents. In paediatric…
With two commercially available inhibitors, the cell cycle of the cancer cells in neuroblastomas can be disrupted at a key point causing tumour cell death. Neuroblastomas are malignant solid tumours that occur mainly in early childhood. Inhibiting the MYCN oncogene or its function could be a promising therapeutic opportunity.
So far, little research has been done on the risk of children being seriously affected by Covid-19 when the schools were open. A study from Karolinska Institutet has now shown that one child in 130,000 was treated in an intensive care unit on account of Covid-19 during the period March-June. The study has been published in New England Journal of Medicine.
Clinicians will be able to take a low radiation, digital X-ray image - without the need for an anti-scatter grid - thanks to new innovative ‘scattering suppression software’. Developed by photonics scientists at the Warsaw University of Technology (WUT), working in collaboration with innovation incubator ACTPHAST 4.0 and medical imaging company Italray SRL, the new algorithm ‘auto…
Childhood neuroblastomas display extreme differences in the way they develop: they can shrink spontaneously or spread aggressively to healthy tissue. It is molecular super-enhancers that activate the regulatory circuits that steer the tumor down one path or the other. These are the findings of research conducted by scientists from the Hopp Children's Cancer Center Heidelberg (KiTZ), the German…
Acute stroke in children has the same incidence as brain tumours and can seriously affect a patient’s life. Two kinds of arteriopathies are common drivers of paediatric acute stroke and radiologists must learn to distinguish their signs as early as possible to improve prognosis, according to Béatrice Husson, a paediatric radiologist at Le Kremlin Bicêtre Hospital in Paris.
Re-starting the global economy for billions of people will depend on successfully overcoming logistical challenges in the ‘last mile’ of a COVID-19 vaccine’s journey to immunisation stations, according to a new report.
A team of researchers in the US and Australia have developed a way of testing potential drugs for children’s cancers so as to take account of the wide genetic diversity of these diseases. In new research to be presented at the 32th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, Professor Peter Houghton, director of the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute (San…
Researchers at the University of Helsinki and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified the mechanism behind bone marrow failure developing in children that suffer from Fanconi anaemia. The findings will help to develop new therapies for the disorder.
Babies born with higher levels of cadmium in their umbilical cord blood may be more likely to develop childhood asthma and allergies, according to research presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress. (1)