Category Archives: Pediatric Cardiology

Cincinnati Childrens has named Michael Gaies, MD, MPH, MS, the newest executive co-director of its Heart Institute. Gaies has also been named division director of Pediatric Cardiology and Kindervelt Samuel Kaplan Chair in Cardiology. He joins current Heart Institute executive co-directors Jeffery Molkentin, PhD, and David Morales, MD, and succeeds Andrew Redington, MD, who will retire from Cincinnati Childrens at the beginning of 2024. Continue reading →

Lynsey Alverson, mother to now-2-year-old Charley Grace, had a smooth pregnancy and delivery with no major issues. The medical team was watching everything on the monitors during the delivery and Charleys heart rate was fine, says Lynsey. But after she was born, she wasnt crying much, had a blue haze to her and was making abnormal gurgling noises. Continue reading →

Ariyana Hernandezs obstetrics appointment on a Friday in late January was supposed to be a routine 28-week checkup. But during the ultrasound, her obstetrician noted what appeared to be a mass on the babys heart. Continue reading →

To ensure that the medical decision-making and communication preferences of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with advanced heart disease are known, efforts need to be stepped up to make their clinicians and caregivers aware of those preferences, according to new survey results published in JAMA Network Open. These results show that this complex patient population prefers to have an active role in their medical decision-making, with the study authors highlighting, AYA decision-making involvement is associated with important outcomes in other chronic illness groups, but little is known about the medical and end-of-life decision-making preferences of AYAs with advanced heart disease. Fifty-six patients with a median (IQR) age of 17.8 (15.8-19.0) years and 53 AYA-parent pairs were enrolled in the present study Continue reading →

May 11, 2023 In an effort to determine the cause behind a rare condition that causes heart failure in children, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers have identified new gene mutations responsible for the disorder in an infant patient. They were then able to learn how the mutation works and used a drug to reverse its effects in heart muscle cells derived from stem cells from the patient. The findings, published in late April inCirculation,suggest that treatments could be developed to manage the condition rather than requiring a heart transplant, which is the standard treatment for this condition in children. Continue reading →