In this episode of Pediapod, Section Editor Jeanie Tryggestad discusses the most recent advances in the field of Pediatric Endocrinology.

What's hot in Endocrinology? 

Pediatric researchers Cynthia Bearer and Eleanor Molloy join podcast host Geoff Marsh to give an update on plans for the podcast and to offer some sage advice for Early Career Investigators. Find more Pediapod episodes here: https://www.nature.com/collections/fcbjjbchaa

Conversation With Pediatric Researchers Cynthia Bearer and Eleanor Molloy

This episode involves a conversation with&nbsp;senior investigator&nbsp;Linda de Vries,&nbsp;who has had a large and lasting effect in the world of pediatric research.

Conversation with Linda de Vries

The United Nations recently stated that “climate change is the defining issue of our time, and we are at a defining moment” (<a href="https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/climate-change" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/climate-change</a>). This statement ended the political debate about the role of human activities in climate change. Global climate change is happening and it will have a profound effect on our children. Listen and learn from&nbsp;Dr. Kari Nadeau the Chair of Environmental Health from Harvard School of Public Health and one of the guest editors of Pediatric Research's <a href="https://www.nature.com/collections/chjjihfaec" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">special issue on climate change</a>. Read Dr. Nadeau's editorial here: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-022-02290-7" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Global climate change: the defining issue of our time for our children’s health | Pediatric Research (nature.com)</a>

Global climate change: the defining issue of our time for our children’s health

Illness&nbsp;severity scores are commonly used for mortality prediction&nbsp;and risk stratification in pediatric critical care research. However, as mortality has steadily declined in the pediatric intensive care unit there has been increasing attention given to evaluating non-mortality outcomes in survivors.&nbsp; In this episode we meet Early Career Investigator Elizabeth Killien from Seattle Children's Hospital. In&nbsp;order&nbsp;to evaluate the ability of two commonly used illness severity scores to predict morbidity outcomes, she performed a secondary analysis of the&nbsp;Life After Pediatric Sepsis Evaluation (LAPSE) multicenter longitudinal cohort study of functional and health-related quality of life outcomes among survivors of septic shock. Read the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-023-02619-w" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">full article here</a>: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-023-02619-w" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Predicting functional and quality-of-life outcomes following pediatric sepsis: performance of PRISM-III and PELOD-2 | Pediatric Research (nature.com)</a>

Predicting functional and quality-of-life outcomes following pediatric sepsis.

This episode, along with a few more to come, involves a conversation with a senior investigator who has had a large and lasting effect in the world of pediatric research. The Early Career Investigator episodes will still be coming once a month, but hopefully this will add a bit of variety to the Pediapod feed and shine a light on some of the pioneers who have helped shape the face of modern Pediatrics. This episode features Dr. Max Vento. Read Max Vento's biocommentary here: www.nature.com/documents/Max_Vento_Biocommentary.pdf

Conversation with Dr. Maximo Vento 

Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy (HIE),&nbsp;a subset of neonatal encephalopathy, is the most common neurological condition in term born infants.&nbsp;It is known that a range of acute and chronic placental pathologies are more common in&nbsp;infants with HIE.&nbsp;However little is known about how differences in utero-placental function might contribute to varied outcomes in these infants. In this episode of Pediapod, we speak to Early Career Investigator Dr. Jeffrey Russ from Duke University Medical Center, who retrospectively analyzed whether acute versus chronic placental pathology were differentially associated with outcomes in patients with presumed HIE. Read the full <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-023-02737-5" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">study here</a>: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-023-02737-5" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The association of placental pathology and neurodevelopmental outcomes in patients with neonatal encephalopathy | Pediatric Research (nature.com)</a>

The association of placental pathology and neurodevelopmental outcomes in patients with neonatal encephalopathy

The development&nbsp;of children born very preterm&nbsp;is most often evaluated using the Bayley&nbsp;Scales of Infant Development. These single assessments are routinely used as outcome measures&nbsp;for neonatal interventions or as a means of prognosis. However, early Bayley scores may not accurately predict later outcomes.&nbsp; In this episode of Pediapod, we speak to Dr. Mary Lauren&nbsp;Neel&nbsp;from Emory University who, along with her team, set up a study to determine whether Bayley-III score trajectories measured at multiple timepoints in children born very preterm, predicted school readiness at age 5, better than a single assessment.&nbsp; Read the full study here: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-023-02656-5" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bayley trajectories predict school readiness better than single assessments in formerly very preterm preschoolers | Pediatric Research (nature.com)</a>

Do Bayley trajectories predict school-readiness better than single assessments in formerly very preterm infants?

The temporal facilitates many complex neurological processes. Alterations to these processes are known to correlate&nbsp;with specific functional deficits commonly found in preterm-born children at and beyond&nbsp;school age.&nbsp;However, as yet there is not an objective, validated method to assess the temporal lobe structure or size in very preterm infants. In this episode of Pediapod, I speak to neonatologist and this month's highlighted Early Career Investigator,&nbsp;Katherine&nbsp;Bell, from the Brigham and Women's hospital, Boston who developed a new method for quantifying temporal&nbsp;lobe size in very preterm infants at term equivalent age using simple metrics performed on brain MRI.&nbsp; Read the full study here: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-023-02567-5" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Novel metrics to characterize temporal lobe of very preterm infants on term-equivalent brain MRI | Pediatric Research (nature.com)</a>

Novel metrics to characterise the temporal lobe of very preterm infants.

Pediatric Research Podcast: Pediapod

Pediapod is the pediatrics podcast from Pediatric Research, produced in association with Nature Publishing Group. Join us as we explore the etiologies of diseases of children and disorders of development, featuring interviews with top researchers and highlighted content from one of the premier journals in the field of pediatrics.

Pediatric Research Podcast

Follow