Like most U.S. hospitals, Cincinnati Children's is affected by the IV fluid shortage caused by damage to Baxter International's North Carolina production facility during Hurricane Helene. Our teams will continue to watch this situation and will provide any updates as needed.
The new Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis of hypertension in youth published by the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends routine use of 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) for confirmation of hypertension. The CPG arbitrarily selected the 95th% for clinic BP for age, height and sex for the cut-point to apply ABPM if lifestyle modification failed to lower BP. However, our data from a large multi-center study of BP in youth shows that adolescents with clinic BP over the 85th% have a high likelihood of demonstrating an abnormality on ABPM. This paper provides evidence for refinement of future BP guidelines.
Rheumatic heart disease can be diagnosed early through echocardiographic screening. Here, we utilized a large retrospective dataset to improve criteria for diagnosis and to develop a risk stratification score for RHD progression.
This study indicated the value of simulation-based training in improving resuscitation performance of the multidisciplinary resuscitation team in cardiac intensive care. It was demonstrated, using objective measures of performance, that Advance Nurse Practitioners (ANPs) can improve team leading skills in a resuscitation cardiac emergency using high fidelity simulation training. ANPs increasingly play a key role in daily clinical management of critically ill cardiac patients and their ability to lead the resuscitation provides a safety network in a busy cardiac intensive care unit. Simulation training provides a realistic and safe way to train various team members on rare but serious events that require coordinated action.
The HOPE-2 randomized open-label trial demonstrated significant and sustained improvement in cardiac and skeletal muscle function in a group of severely affected Duchenne patients after direct coronary administration of allogenic cardiospheres. It is the hope that cardiosphere based therapy can be used to ameliorate what is an inexorably progressive disease.