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Research Update
Recognized as one of the nation’s ten largest free-standing pediatric research centers, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of the fastest growing pediatric research centers in the United States. Currently it’s ranked in the top 20 among all pediatric research organizations based on NIH funding. In 2008, The Research Institute received a record $49.4 million in external funding, and there are more than 700 IRB-approved protocols currently in progress.

Hospital Update
Nationwide Children’s Hospital Ranks Among the Best in U.S. News 2009 List of America’s Best Children’s Hospitals

Addressing the Unique Needs of Adolescent Health
Adolescents are physically the healthiest of all age groups. However, the rapid social, cognitive, emotional and physical changes that occur during this age can make this a critical and often difficult time period to negotiate. For more than 40 years, the Section of Adolescent Health at Nationwide Children’s Hospital has been providing general and specialty care for adolescents, helping teens and parents navigate what can sometimes be a treacherous path to adulthood.

Embedded Foreign Bodies: New Challenges, New Solutions
Over the past 15 years, radiologists at Nationwide Children’s Hospital have developed the leading international center of excellence for ultrasound diagnosis and minimally invasive, percutaneous ultrasound guided foreign body removal. Interventional radiologists have removed more than 600 foreign bodies from soft tissue, tendons, muscle and bone. Wood fragments, metal needles, glass, plastic pieces, graphite pencil tips, leaf and mulch fragments, and even crayon fragments have been removed with greater than 98 percent success.

Epilepsy Surgery: Targeting Seizures with Cortical Mapping
Almost 3 million people in the United States have some form of epilepsy. About 200,000 new cases of seizure disorders and epilepsy are diagnosed each year. Approximately 45,000 children under the age of 15 develop epilepsy each year and 326,000 school age children through age 15 have epilepsy. By 20 years of age, one percent of the population can be expected to have developed epilepsy.

The Congenital Heart Disease Transition Education Program
Although the incidence of those born with congenital heart disease is constant, the survival of these children into adolescence and adulthood has increased exponentially. Due to advances in diagnostic modalities, therapeutic interventions and surgical procedures over the past 40+ years, more than 90 percent of congenital heart disease patients are surviving into adulthood.

Letter From the Editor

GI Pacemaker Helps Adolescents
Surgeons at Nationwide Children’s Hospital implanted a pacemaker in a 16-year-old patient with gastroparesis. This is a debilitating neuromuscular disorder of gastric motility in which there is delayed gastric emptying in the absence of any structural or mechanical obstruction.