Saturday, January 28, 2023
SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Scienmag - Latest science news from science magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home SCIENCE NEWS Medicine & Health

UCalgary researcher to lead North American study on a new treatment for E. coli in children

December 7, 2021
in Medicine & Health
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Pediatrician and University of Calgary researcher, Dr. Stephen Freedman, MD, the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation Professor in Child Health and Wellness, will lead a 26-site study investigating a new treatment protocol for a type of E. coli infection that can lead to kidney failure in children. The National Institutes of Health in the United States is providing more than $11 million ($CDN) to support the six-year study that aims to prevent disease progression from bloody diarrhea to kidney shutdown and neurologic complications.

Dr. Stephen Freedman, MD

Credit: Riley Brandt/ University of Calgary

Pediatrician and University of Calgary researcher, Dr. Stephen Freedman, MD, the Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation Professor in Child Health and Wellness, will lead a 26-site study investigating a new treatment protocol for a type of E. coli infection that can lead to kidney failure in children. The National Institutes of Health in the United States is providing more than $11 million ($CDN) to support the six-year study that aims to prevent disease progression from bloody diarrhea to kidney shutdown and neurologic complications.

“This will be the first time in over 20 years that investigators have evaluated a treatment to prevent disease progression. The study will include over 1,000 children and will evaluate early and aggressive intravenous rehydration, a readily available treatment option that is rarely employed by physicians during the early stages of illness. It is at this early stage that children often look well, though a potentially devastating process is evolving. Including it in the treatment protocol earlier, we hope to improve outcomes compared to usual care, which often involves a wait and see approach with monitoring done at home by parents,” says Freedman, a clinician-scientist in the Cumming School of Medicine’s (CSM) Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute (ACHRI) and O’Brien Institute for Public Health. ACHRI is also providing additional funding for the study.

It will focus on Shiga-toxin Producing E. coli (or STEC), commonly found in cattle who can spread it to humans. Alberta has one of the highest rates of STEC infection in the world given the abundance of cattle, sloped terrain, food crops and the use of well water.

Based on promising pilot work, the investigators will evaluate whether a protocol that involves large volumes of intravenous fluids early-on, called hyperhydration, can maintain blood flow to the kidneys and prevent disease progression. Study hospitals will alternate between the hyperhydration protocol and more traditional watchful waiting where children are simply monitored for evidence of disease progression.

“It will be a big change for many health-care providers, especially those not familiar with the potential devastating effects of this infection. We intend to hospitalize infected children, who may appear relatively well, before any complications occur,” says Freedman. “What often happens is, infected children will recover from the diarrhea and may look well, but, in nearly 20 per cent of children, unbeknownst to their parents and sometimes doctors, their kidneys are in the process of failing. Their body is eating up its red blood cells, and they are becoming critically unwell.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 100,000 high-risk STEC infections occur annually in the U.S. Over 60 per cent of these infections occur in children, half of whom are less than five years old, and such children are at the highest risk of complications, which can include renal failure, strokes, and in rare instances death.



Tags: AmericanchildrencolileadNorthResearcherstudytreatmentUCalgary
Share26Tweet16Share4ShareSendShare
  • Logo

    New study shows snacking on mixed tree nuts may impact cardiovascular risk factors and increase serotonin

    71 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 18
  • Ignoring Native American data perpetuates misleading white ‘deaths of despair’ narrative, study finds

    66 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 17
  • Mount Sinai researchers awarded $12 million NIH grant to create a center to unravel novel causes of food allergy and atopic dermatitis

    66 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 17
  • Hydrogen peroxide from tea and coffee residue: New pathway to sustainability

    85 shares
    Share 34 Tweet 21
  • Volcano-like rupture could have caused magnetar slowdown

    64 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • The next generation of global health innovators: Michelson Prize winners announced

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
ADVERTISEMENT

About us

We bring you the latest science news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Latest NEWS

Hydrogen peroxide from tea and coffee residue: New pathway to sustainability

Null results research now published by major behavioral medicine journal

Regulating immunological memory may help immune system fight disease, MU study finds

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 205 other subscribers

© 2022 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US

© 2022 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In