Department of Pediatrics In the News

“I think so often our birthing individuals with substance use disorders were often treated disrespectfully and noncentral to the care of their own infants after birth,” said Sunah Hwang, who founded CHoSEN and is a neonatologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado [and associate professor of pediatrics at CU School of Medicine]. “I think what ‘eat, sleep, console’ and CHoSEN QIC [the group’s quality improvement collaborative] really did was change the paradigm in terms of what is the role of the birthing individual in that birth hospital care of the baby.”

According to [Bill] Anderson, who's also a[n associate] professor of pediatric allergy and immunology at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, climate change has slowly extended allergy season over time. “What we're seeing is that because of these warmer temperatures, the allergy season is starting earlier each year and lasting a little bit longer,” he says.

Providers recognize it can be easier said than done for teenagers to get all of the necessary nutrients they need through diet alone. Rochelle Cason-Wilkerson, MD, nutritionist, provides important information on how teens' needs change as they develop and how to incorporate vitamins into their diet.

Aline Maddux, associate professor of pediatrics [Section of Critical Care Medicine] in the pediatrics intensive care unit, is a part of Cartier’s medical team. “His heart stopped beating. We tried to revive it, and there was fear that he might not survive this,” Maddux said.

“When determining if a patient needs a daily controller medication, such as inhaled corticosteroids, it is important to classify the severity of a patient’s asthma,” says William Anderson of Children’s Hospital Colorado….Anderson, an associate professor of pediatric allergy at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, says this helps in determining whether they need a daily controller therapy.

In a retrospective chart review, IV ketamine led to in a 50% reduction in pain at discharge, with “nearly two-thirds” of patients having no recurrence within 30 days, lead investigator Scott Rosenthal, [instructor/fellow of pediatrics, Section of Neurology] from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, noted. Rosenthal reported the findings (Abstract S20.010) on April 15 at the American Academy of Neurology 2024 annual meeting.

When the task force began its meta-analysis to find the new pediatric sepsis criteria, the team “wanted to understand the settings where this work was done,” explained Halden Scott, an associate professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Colorado, University of Colorado, School of Medicine, in Aurora, and a task force member. “We looked at whether the countries were classified as lower income, lower middle income, upper middle income or high income following the World Bank classification system.”

Due to structural racism, Black and Latin populations have been exposed to more particulate air pollution, Stephanie Johannes, an allergy and immunology fellow at Children’s Hospital Colorado, said during her presentation.

“The ‘oops’ babies on Ozempic and Wegovy are happening all over the place,” Melanie Cree-Green, [associate professor of pediatrics, Section of Endocrinology and] director of the polycystic ovary syndrome clinic at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, told the news outlet. “It’s very exciting, but it's a bit scary because we’re moving forward without all the data.”

[Chief Medical Officers David Brumbaugh, MD, associate professor, Section of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and Michael DiStefano, MD, associate professor, Section of Emergency Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, CU School of Medicine] highlighted by this list champion patient safety, uphold rigorous quality standards, act as liaisons between leadership teams and medical staff, manage risk, and much more. These CMOs are drivers of continuous improvement, and their efforts have helped garner numerous quality and safety accolades for their respective organizations.

David M. Higgins, a pediatrician at the University of Colorado and Children’s Hospital Colorado, sees patients and also conducts research — but “not the type of research that’s done in the laboratory with beakers and things like that,” as he puts it. Rather, his focus is on health services research, including the study of vaccine delivery, public access to vaccines, and vaccine hesitancy.

“As of July 29, 2023, Vaccine Safety Datalink surveillance found just 16.2% of pregnant people aged 18 to 49 years had received a COVID-19 booster vaccine, with only 8.3% of Black pregnant people and 9.6% of Latino pregnant people vaccinated during pregnancy,” Joshua T. B. Williams, assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Ambulatory Care Services at Denver Health and Hospitals, and colleagues wrote.

Dr. Jaime Moore (assistant professor, Section of Nutrition, CU School of Medicine) with Children's Hospital Colorado disagreed.

"The heart attacks, stroke, kidney failure and dialysis, amputations, infections, these things that really represent significant cost savings especially if we intervene earlier. For adolescent girls who develop Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, PCOS is strongly linked to obesity and is the number one cause of infertility in the world. We would be preventing the cost of invitro fertilization."

“Since it’s common for there to be long delays before diagnosis of CNO, it is important to start an effective treatment promptly,” Katherine D. Nowicki, of Children’s Hospital Colorado, [and assistant professor of pediatrics at CU School of Medicine] Aurora, Colorado, told attendees. “While we have guidance on which treatments to use, it remains unclear which patients are most likely to respond to NSAIDs and which patients will require a second-line treatment.”

Caregivers want to make well-educated decisions when it comes to their kids, which can sometimes lead to concerns when it comes to vaccination. Sean O' Leary, MD, infectious disease specialist [and professor of pediatrics at University of Colorado School of Medicine], breaks down some ways you can respond to common vaccine concerns.

These results indicate a favorable safety and tolerability profile with potential for use over multiple years of treatment, David M. Fleischer, associate professor of pediatrics [and head, Section of Allergy and Immunology at CU School of Medicine], Children’s Hospital Colorado, and colleagues wrote. “The only current options for peanut immunotherapy are oral immunotherapy and now omalizumab,” Fleischer told Healio.

“It’s almost impossible to avoid reactions and live in the real world,” said BJ Lanser, a pediatric allergy specialist at National Jewish Health in Denver [and associate professor of pediatrics at CU School of Medicine]. “That peace of mind and knowledge of the protection that is there is obviously of significant benefit to many.”

Most providers working in birthing facilities don’t know that the law changed, though, and they may still report families based solely on a drug test, said Christine Gold, a pediatric hospitalist at University of Colorado Hospital [and associate professor of pediatrics at CU School of Medicine].

“Heart block is an interruption in the flow of electricity through the heart,” said Dr. Dustin Nash, a cardiologist [and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine]. “The upper chamber of the heart is usually in charge of how fast the heart beats. It looks like there was a blockage of that signal.”

“Just finding an association with gut bacteria composition does not mean it will have impacts on health,” said Noel Mueller, a visiting associate professor, [Section of Nutrition] in the department of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and department of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health in Aurora. “The next step is to home in on these species and see whether or not they have links with cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases that have been linked to socioeconomic disadvantage.”

Adequate sleep is a bedrock of a child’s physical and mental health, said Jill Kaar, an associate professor of pediatrics [and director of Research Outcomes in Children's Surgery] at the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colorado. “Everything starts with sleep,” said Kaar, a maternal and child health epidemiologist.

The product is also a reality check for researchers in high-income countries, says Terry Fry, an immunologist and paediatric oncologist [and director of the Gates Institute] at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Denver, who has advised the researchers involved in setting up ImmunoACT. “It lights a little fire under all of us to look at the cost of making CAR-T cells, even in places like the United States.”

“It’s a pretty miserable disease,” said Sean O’Leary, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases specialist [and director, Colorado Children's Outcomes Network] at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Ultrasound already is showing evidence of the benefits of current treatment approaches for pediatric EoE, including dietary changes or swallowed topical corticosteroids such as budesonide or fluticasone, said Calies Menard-Katcher, MD, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado, in Aurora, who was not involved in the study. “They showed that wall thickness decreased once kids went into remission,” she said. “This provides evidence for structural improvements with treatment in the pediatric population.”

With her rheumatoid arthritis (RA) Research Program award, Dr. Elena Hsieh (associate professor of pediatrics, Section of Allergy and Immunology) will focus on the immunological determinants that drive the conversion from “at risk” rheumatoid arthritis to symptomatic RA.

Acute respiratory tract illnesses represent one of the most common reasons for being evaluated in an acute care setting, especially in pediatrics, and these visits have traditionally resulted in excessive antibiotic prescribing, despite the etiology of the infection mostly being viral,” said Suchitra Rao, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and associate medical director of infection prevention and control at Children’s Hospital Colorado, Aurora, Colorado. 

A study at University of Colorado’s Gates Institute on the Anschutz Medical Campus is looking at CAR-T in adult patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow, whose first round of chemotherapy either failed or gave a disappointing response that suggests it won’t work for long, executive director Terry Fry, MD, said.

Crystal has had ventricular septal defect, a hole in her heart, since birth. The diagnosis brought her family to Children's Colorado to await a lifesaving heart transplant. “It was so critical that we got a heart as soon as we could for her that was compatible for her body," said Melanie Everitt, MD, Director of Pediatric Heart Transplant (and professor of pediatrics, Section of Cardiology). A year later, Crystal received her heart and is now back home.

Millions worldwide live with type 1 diabetes, and for most the diagnosis came as a shock, following mysterious symptoms such as thirst and weight loss. But diabetes specialists have long known that certain blood tests can foretell the disease years earlier. That has left the field wrestling with a difficult question: Should healthy children get these blood tests, and would knowing about incipient diabetes help them?

One project, in Germany, screened tens of thousands of children and tracked those who tested positive. It found that among 118 who progressed to full-blown diabetes, the rate of DKA was just 2.5%.

Many experts agree the once popular “cry it out” method is not ideal for helping an infant get to sleep. “It’s generally not a method we use or recommend with families,” said Katherine Wesley, a pediatric sleep psychologist with Children’s Hospital Colorado [and assistant professor of pediatrics at CU School of Medicine]. Wesley recommends responding quickly to an infant’s cry until they are at least six months old.

Pediatrician Stephen Daniels, of University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado, said that an amblyopia-cardiometabolic link would be “hard to explain from a mechanism standpoint.” He suggested that a “third factor (perhaps the intrauterine environment) influences both outcomes (amblyopia and cardiometabolic dysfunction), but this would be very speculative,” he told MedPage Today in an email.

“It’s basically really good news,” said Sean O’Leary, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Children’s Hospital Colorado. “In some clinical trials we see some level of effectiveness … but then when it’s rolled out in the real world, for any number of potential reasons, things don’t work out as well as they had in the clinical trials.”

According to Dr. Aaina Kochhar (assistant professor of pediatrics, Section of Genetics and Metabolism, University of Colorado School of Medicine) with Children's Hospital Colorado, PPA2 does not have a cure, but once diagnosed, it is more easy to manage.

David Higgins, MD, MPH, MS (instructor/research fellow, Section of General Academic Pediatrics): I am a pediatrician and preventive medicine physician, and I have anxiously watched measles cases rise worldwide while vaccination rates have dropped since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic due to disruptions in vaccine access and the spread of vaccine misinformation.

“Years ago, we thought these hearts were fragile and needed sheltering,” said Dr. Diana Tsen, a pediatric cardiologist with Children’s Hospital Colorado who cares for patients at UCHealth Pediatric Heart and Vascular Clinic in Steamboat Springs. “But now, we encourage those with congenital heart defects not to live in a bubble. We want them to lead normal lives, enjoy sports and grow into healthy adults.”

"The biggest takeaway from the long-term study of Viaskin for the treatment of peanut allergy is the continued data that show the high safety profile of the treatment, making it an attractive future treatment option for patients, families, and clinicians," David M. Fleischer, MD, director, Allergy and Immunology Center, Children's Hospital Colorado, and study author told Contemporary Pediatrics.

When the task force began its meta-analysis to find the new pediatric sepsis criteria, the team “wanted to understand the settings where this work was done,” explained Halden Scott, MD, MSCS, an associate professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Colorado, University of Colorado, School of Medicine, in Aurora, and a task force member. “We looked at whether the countries were classified as lower income, lower middle income, upper middle income or high income following the World Bank classification system.”

Diagnostic stewardship, along with targeted prevention efforts and a testing and treatment clinical care pathway, reduced hospital-onset cases of Clostridioides difficile by more than 50% in a children’s hospital, researchers reported. 

Source: Cotter JM, et al. Pediatrics. 2024;doi:10.1542/peds.2023-061981.

“Ear infections are by far the most common reason that children in the U.S. are prescribed antibiotics,” Holly M. Frost, senior director of the Center for Health Systems Research at Denver Health [and associate professor of pediatrics at CU School of Medicine], told Healio. “By the time a child is 5 years old, 80% of them will have had at least one ear infection, and a quarter of them will have had three or more.”

For Shelley Miyamoto, MD, there were two reasons to become a cardiologist: The mentors she encountered during residency who inspired her and the physiology of the heart.

Kevin Messacar, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at Children’s Hospital Colorado and another co-author of the January 2022 commentary, agrees. "The decoupling of AFM and the potential of AFM returning with an EV-D68 spike, I don't think anyone can predict at this point," Messacar told Ars. Instead of trying to predict, he said, it's better to prepare.

“She didn’t think she could get the help to ever feel better and get the care she needed,” said Talynn’s mom, Elise. “But Dr. Sweeney [assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine]  and her gymnastics clinic changed all of that.”

Children’s Hospital Colorado is announcing its recent acceptance into the Pediatric Heart Network, a collective of leading hospitals working to improve outcomes and quality of life for children – and more recently adults – with heart disease. The hospital’s Heart Institute will become one of nine clinical research centers across North America selected to be a part of this national network.

The first author of the study was Suchitra Rao, MD, University of Colorado School of Medicine and Colorado Children's Hospital. Their findings have so far uncovered a few clues to long COVID risk. For instance, about 45% of the children who developed long COVID experienced COVID-19 symptoms rather than symptomless infections (15%). Other factors include older age, more severe initial COVID-19 infection, the number of different organ systems initially affected, underlying medical conditions and higher weight.

The new review suggested that 10 to 20 percent of children in the United States who had Covid developed long Covid. However, Suchitra Rao, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital Colorado [and associate professor of pediatrics at CU School of Medicine] and co-author on the paper, acknowledged that there are “lots of caveats” with the prevalence estimates used to arrive at that number.

Nearly two dozen cardiology leaders across the nation are making career moves, including at Children's Colorado. Shelley Miyamoto, MD is now the Jack Cooper Millisor Chair of Pediatric Cardiology and co-director of the Heart Institute.

“Over the past 10 to 15 years, the outcomes of IBD have changed a bit and with those have come some increasing costs of care,” Brad David Constant, assistant professor of pediatric gastroenterology at [CU School of Medicine and] Children’s Hospital Colorado, said at the Crohn’s & Colitis Congress. “These costs of care have been met by the payers and insurance companies to try and make sure that we are not having unnecessary costs in utilization of these medications.”

Steven Federico, a pediatrician and chief of government and community affairs at Denver Health [and associate professor of pediatrics at CU School of Medicine], said the hospital has reached out to state and federal agencies for help. “I think it’s been an unheeded call so far in terms of who’s going to be responsible for the health care of this population,” Federico told NBC News. “In the meantime, it falls on safety net hospitals like Denver Health.”

Another pediatrician getting ready to work the late shift in the emergency room, Kristi Rodrigues, [associate professor of pediatrics at CU School of Medicine] said she worries about what care migrants will be able to access once they leave the ER. The hospital is required to cover anyone who comes in for emergency care, regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay, but Rodrigues worries that patients won’t be able to have checkups or get medication for illnesses that are sometimes life-threatening.

“This is an exciting time for sickle cell … and this has radically changed our conversations that we have with patients,” said Chris McKinney, a hematologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora who specializes in caring for patients with the disease. “We’re very relieved to be able to have additional options for our patients who have struggled for a long, long time with very few good options for over 30 years.”

Barry H. Rumack, MD, professor emeritus of emergency medicine and pediatrics, received the Prince Mahidol Award for 2023 in a ceremony in Bangkok, Thailand, last month. Each year, two Prince Mahidol Awards are given to individuals or institutes who have demonstrated outstanding and exemplary contributions to advancing the world's medical and public health services. Barry was recognized in the public health category for his work on an antidote to paracetamol toxicity, which results in liver failure, and for pioneering the use of Poisindex as a poison information database.

Co-author Professor David Olds of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, said, "The women in this study were facing profound adversities. The trial showed that the relatively small investment for these nurse visits can lead to big changes because the benefits are the most pronounced where the needs are the greatest."

In a Children’s Hospital Colorado exam room, pediatric pulmonologist Heather De Keyser shows a clouded X-ray of the lung of a young adult damaged by vaping. “This is a patient with vaping-related lung injury,” she said, pointing to a computer screen.

Fresh off the holidays, and now in the heart of winter, respiratory viruses are making their seasonal rounds through Colorado. While we expect several more weeks of increased patient volume, we believe we're past the peak of the respiratory season, according to Kevin Carney, MD, Associate Chief Medical Officer.

“Our study confirms that time in range, as well as time in tight target range, is associated with incident diabetic retinopathy,” Viral N. Shah, MD, associate professor of medicine and pediatrics in the adult clinic of the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, told Healio. “We only evaluated diabetic retinopathy in our study, but I am confident to extrapolate this finding to other microvascular complications such as nephropathy risk as well.”

In June, life took an unexpected turn for The Masters University freshman Ezra. Cardiologists Dustin Nash, MD, and Johannes von Alvensleben, MD, placed the first leadless pacemaker to help treat Ezra's serious heart condition.

To address the longstanding issue of inequitable infant and maternal care for families of color, Children's Colorado is providing simulation training about bias in the medical system for all providers, called the Black Health Initiative. Jeannie Dixon, health equity program manager at the Child Health Advocacy Institute, and Marcela Mendenhall, MD, emergency medicine physician, share more.

A Lakewood couple learned both of their kids have SPG50, an ultra-rare genetic disease that affects cognitive and motor function. Though navigating SPG50 is far from what the family had planned, they're doing everything they can to help their kids, including gene therapy. Sarah Guistolisi, MD, neurology resident, explains more on treating this type of rare disease.

“Epilepsy really is a collection of rare diseases,” Kelly G. Knupp, MD, MSCS, associate professor of pediatrics and neurology at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, said at the American Epilepsy Society annual meeting. 

The shots have been hailed as a game changer for RSV, an illness that crowds pediatric wards in fall and winter and causes tens of thousands of young children in the U.S. to be hospitalized annually. 

A study found that the COVID-19 pandemic was not associated with changes in the proportion of parents who were hesitant toward childhood vaccines.

“How do we reconcile the message when we tell a child that weight doesn’t define them, that it’s just a number,” and then, in the next breath, suggest that the child take a weight loss medication? 

The hospital says most patients are suffering from respiratory illnesses like the flu and RSV.

Water beads, button batteries, and high powered magnets are major concerns

Every child in need of liver transplant this year will get one as donors help clear waitlist

In December, the then-14-year-old developed complications from the flu and was rushed to the hospital, where he remained for 49 days.

You should ignore any online tip telling you to use a product differently than how the product’s packaging directs you to, says Dr. Samantha Minneman, M.D., FAAP.

Peanut-allergic toddlers who stayed on an investigational, epicutaneous immunotherapy skin patch reached higher levels of peanut tolerance during the second year, according to the open-label extension of the EPITOPE trial.

College sports have seen a decline in the rate of sudden cardiac deaths, but rates remain higher for Division I men's basketball players, as well as male and Black athletes in other sports, new research has found.

In Colorado, a new analysis shows that the number of tests and treatments conducted for which the risks and costs exceed the benefits has barely budged despite a decade-long attempt to tamp down on such care.

“The bad news is that it’s gone down since the pandemic and still hasn’t rebounded,” said Sean O’Leary, a University of Colorado pediatric infectious diseases specialist. “The good news is that the vast majority of parents are still vaccinating their kids according to the recommended schedule.”

The COVID-19 pandemic was not associated with changes in parental vaccine hesitancy overall, but there were other effects, including a polarization of vaccine attitudes and changes in trust about vaccine information.

Children’s Hospital Colorado is aligning their distribution of nirsevimab – a monoclonal antibody treatment for the prevention of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) – with the CDC guidance and recommendations for who to prioritize for receipt of this medication.

But GLP-1's actions are extremely fast. "Once the hormone hits the blood, it begins to be degraded," says integrated physiologist Darleen Sandoval, at the University of Colorado, who has studied GLP-1 for more than a decade.

Newsweek has released the top 600 U.S. hospitals ranked by state, sorted by a score that factors recommendations, patient experience, quality and patient-reported outcome measures.

On October 13, the drug manufacturer Sanofi made a surprising announcement: Public demand for Beyfortus — the brand name of nirsevimab, the company’s new product aimed at protecting newborns from severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections — had wildly outpaced supply.

More adults are now living with congenital heart disease than ever before because of medical and technological advances that have allowed them to thrive decades beyond their initial childhood diagnosis.

Lots of vaccine disinformation spread during the pandemic, and doctors worried that may have given some parents pause about not only the risks of the COVID shot, but of childhood vaccines as well.

The biggest takeaways from the session “Suicide and Gun Violence: What We Know, What We Can Do” presented at the 2023 American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference & Exhibition by Eric J. Sigel, MD, FAAP.

"Toddler milks," powdered drink mixes or formulas marketed for children up to age 3, are unregulated and unnecessary, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Baby Olive Heringer has been to more hospitals than most at eight months old. She was diagnosed with long QT syndrome before she was even born. “It’s very rare for somebody to be as affected as Olive is. We’re talking less than one in 10,000, less than one in a 100,000,” said Dustin Nash, MD, a pediatric electrophysiologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado.

In a related commentary published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Satish K. Garg, MD, professor of medicine and pediatrics at the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes, and Sarit Polsky, MD, MPH, wrote that the trial revealed how a hybrid closed-loop system can be.

Hybrid closed-loop therapy significantly improved maternal glycemic control during pregnancy in people with type 1 diabetes, providing a clinical advantage beyond that achieved with continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and insulin-pump therapy, shows the AiDAPT randomized controlled trial.

As health care providers across the United States grapple with ongoing shortages of cancer drugs, experts are sounding the alarm about drugs that are becoming harder to obtain.

Early in the pandemic, questions over vaccine safety increased as researchers started to track reports linking the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines to myocarditis in young adult males and adolescents, mostly after the second dose.

In this episode of Charting Pediatrics, Amy Grover, MD, Meghan Treitz, MD, and Margie Rodgers join us to discuss the LIC model at Children’s Hospital Colorado and how students gain exposure to the clinical world earlier in their medical school journey. 

Breastfeeding helps prevent obesity later in life, research shows Breast-fed babies had a lower percentage of body fat at age 9 than their counterparts who never received breast milk Sweetened drinks and soda before 18 months of age were also linked to faster increases in body fat in childhood.

Today, the physicians, psychologists, and social workers at the Kempe Center are conflicted about this history. Some faculty members, including doctors who specialize in child abuse, strongly defend mandatory reporting laws and Kempe’s legacy, and say that without them, abuse would continue to be pervasive and ignored. Lisa Merkel-Holguin, MSW, and Colleen Gibley-Reed, MSW, LCSW are quoted in the article. 

In a recent study, published in The Journal of Nutrition, researchers from the National Institute of Health's Environmental Influences on Child's Health Outcomes Program set out to find a list of low-calorie, nutrient-rich foods to help boost nutrient intake without having to rely on supplements.

As our country continues to experience this soaring growth, qualified medical interpreters are becoming more essential to improving health outcomes and achieving health equity goals. In this episode, Anna Ruman, MD, and Nancy Casillas join us to discuss the importance of effective and accessible interpretation and translation services.

Here’s how research suggests the naps and diabetes connection plays out, according to Stacey L. Simon, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics. 

The tepid uptake level of the HPV vaccine since it was rolled out in 2006 also plays a role. But many parents refuse them for their preteens because of safety worries or the fear that vaccination will promote sexual activity—two common misconceptions, says Sean O’Leary, M.D., M.P.H.

Specific to pediatric pneumonia, potential uses of biomarkers include helping to determine etiology to predict disease course, to target therapy, and to determine response to therapy. Guest, Dr. Lilliam Ambroggio