Children's Hospitals Today - Summer 2017 - 10

ROUNDS / RESEARCH

Detecting trauma
Blood test helps identify abusive head trauma in infants.

esearchers at Children's Hospital of
Pittsburgh of UPMC have developed
a blood test that could help clinicians
identify infants who may have had bleeding of the brain as a result of abusive head
trauma (AHT), sometimes referred to as
shaken baby syndrome.
The serum-based test, which needs to
be validated in a larger population and
receive regulatory approval before being used in clinical practice, would be
the first of its kind to detect bleeding
of the brain. Infants who test positive
would then have further evaluation via
brain imaging to determine the source
of the bleeding.
AHT is the leading cause of death from
traumatic brain injury in infants and
the leading cause of death from physical
abuse in the United States. But about 30
percent of AHT diagnoses are missed
when caretakers provide inaccurate histories or when infants have nonspecific
symptoms such as vomiting or fussiness.
Missed diagnoses can be catastrophic because AHT can lead to permanent brain
damage and even death.
Researchers at UPMC collaborated
with a molecular diagnostics company
to develop a test that could reduce the
chances of a missed diagnosis. The test

uses a combination of three biomarkers,
along with a measure of the patient's level
of hemoglobin, the protein that carries
oxygen in blood. An automated testing
system allowed the researchers to measure multiple biomarkers simultaneously
using an extremely small amount of blood.
To arrive at the formula for discriminating between infants with and without intracranial hemorrhage, called the
Biomarkers for Infant Brain Injury Score
(BIBIS), the team used previously stored
serum samples from a databank.
Researchers then evaluated the predictive capacity of the BIBIS value in a
second population of 599 infants enrolled
at three study sites. In addition to UPMC,
infants were enrolled at Ann & Robert
H. Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago
and Primary Children's Hospital in Salt
Lake City. The test correctly detected
acute intracranial hemorrhage because
of AHT approximately 90 percent of the
time, a much higher rate than the sensitivity of clinical judgement, which is
approximately 70 percent. The test is not
intended to replace clinical judgement,
but researchers say it can supplement
clinical evaluation.
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ADMINISTRATOR NEWS

Arkansas Children's
Northwest, expected to open
in January 2018, named
Robert S. Williams, M.D.,
FAAP, chief medical officer.
California Pacific Medical
Center named Scott
Ciesielski, RN, chief
nursing executive.
Cardon Children's Medical
Center named Cristal
Mackay chief operating
officer; Laura Robertson
interim CEO; and Cheryl
Tong chief financial officer.
Children's Hospital Los
Angeles named James Stein,
M.D., senior vice president
and chief medical officer.
Children's Minnesota named
Marc Gorelick president and
chief operating officer.
HSC Pediatric Center named
Nathaniel Beers, M.D., M.P.A.,
FAAP, president and CEO.
Kentucky Children's Hospital
named Robert Cofield, M.H.A.,
vice president and chief
clinical operations officer.
Medical City Children's
Hospital named Bill Lee,
M.H.A., MBA, CEO.
Royal Children's Hospital in
Melborne, Australia, named
John Stanway CEO.

HOSPITAL NEWS

Children's Health Children's
Medical Center, Dallas
changed its name to
Children's Health, Dallas.
Children's Hospital of Illinois
at OSF Saint Francis Medical
Center changed its name to
OSF HealthCare Children's
Hospital of Illinois.
Send news to magazine
@childrenshospitals.org.

CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL S TODAY Summer 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Children's Hospitals Today - Summer 2017