Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC was named a major severe asthma research center, one of only two pediatric sites in the nation.
The federal Severe Asthma Research Program (SARP), funded by the
National Institutes of Health, hopes to understand why some asthma sufferers are unable to control the disease with medications. Ten percent of asthmatics have a severe form of the disease that is not eased by inhalers such as corticorteroids.
The other pediatric site is
Emory HealthCare in Atlanta. This is the first round of studies to specifically target children.
CHP will also welcome Dr. Fernando Holguin this fall from Emory who will serve as director of UPMC's new Pediatric Center for Environmental Medicine, a program that will dovetail with the pediatric asthma study as it seeks to understand the effects of the environment and outdoor pollution on children.
SARP will be led by Dr. Shean Aujla, a pulmonologist. It is part of an adult SARP grant at UPMC lead by Dr. Sally Wenzel, director of the
Asthma and Allergic Diseases Research Center.
“This places us on the cutting edge of understanding pediatric and severe asthma,” explains Wenzel, who came to Pittsburgh 2 years ago from Denver to develop the program here. “This is a tremendous opportunity to understand severe asthma in kids based on what we already know.”
The initial study will span several years and involve gathering data through the enrollment of at least 20 children who will visit the research clinic three times. Wenzel hopes follow-up funding next year will establish CHP as an NIH sponsored center for study trials, which is the goal.
“We hope this will morph into something much bigger, specific clinical trials and developing an approach on how to take care of kids with bad asthma.”
For more information or to enroll in the study, click
here or call 412-692-LUNG.
Writer:
Debra SmitSource: Dr. Sally Wenzel and Dr. Shean Aujla, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh