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Heart Center
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Children’s Doctor Honored With Prestigious Award From President of the Republic of Colombia for International Contributions to Pediatric Cardiac Care
Colombia’s Minister of Social Protection, Diego Palacio Betancourt, presented Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC’s Heart Center Chief of the Division of Cardiac Intensive Care Ricardo A. Muñoz, MD, FAAP, FCCM, with the prestigious Jorge Bejarano Civic Cross Medal.
During a visit to the Fundacion Valle de Lili last month, Dr. Muñoz was given the award, which is signed by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez, in honor of his outstanding achievements and contributions to the medical field and pediatric cardiac intensive care, acknowledging his contribution to promoting health care in Colombia.
The award is given to honor people who make exceptional contributions in the field of medicine, public health and public welfare. The award is named after Jorge Bejarano, MD, who specialized in pediatrics and hygiene, and was appointed First Minister of Hygiene of Colombia from 1946–1949. Dr. Bejarano was a member of several respected medical societies, including The Colombian National Academy of Medicine, The Venezuelan Academy of Pediatrics, The New York Academy of Medicine, and the North American Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Muñoz, who also is the director of the Cardiac Recovery Program and associate professor of Pediatrics, Critical Care Medicine and Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, has been instrumental in working with doctors in Colombia to expand their pediatric capabilities.
Download a photo of Dr. Muñoz.
Learn more about Dr. Muñoz.
Beads of Courage – of Our Young Cardiac Patients
Beads of Courage is a resilience-based intervention designed to support and strengthen the protective resources in children coping with serious illness. Through the program, children tell their stories using colorful beads as meaningful symbols of courage that commemorate milestones they have achieved along their unique treatment path.
The Heart Center initiated the program here because the beads distract children from the various procedures they go through as patients and allows them to look back at their procedures as a series of accomplishments.
Berlin Heart
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has successfully implanted Berlin Hearts into two patients, both of whom have been transplanted. The Berlin Heart is not readily available in the U.S. and is not FDA-approved; however, the FDA has allowed a few doctors to import them for small children.
Implanted pumps – ventricular assist devices – are available to help keep adolescents and adults alive while they wait for a heart transplant. However, those devices are too large and do not work for small children and infants. The Berlin Heart is a pump from Germany that is designed to assist small children and babies. The Berlin Heart takes some the load off the ventricles by taking blood from the atria and pumping it to the lungs and the body. The pump rests outside the body and is connected to the heart and vessels by a pair of tubes. Children’s is one of only six centers across the country currently doing Berlin Hearts, and is the only one in Pennsylvania. The FDA must grant “emergency use” permission, which it has done twice for Children’s.
Biotechnology has always been an important part of children’s heart care, but innovations have really accelerated over the past several years. The Berlin Heart exemplifies how devices are being scaled down to work in the smallest patients.
ABO Incompatible Heart Transplants Save Babies’ Lives
Under the leadership of Steven Webber, MBChB, Children’s has become one of a handful of pediatric transplant centers performing ABO incompatible heart transplants in babies. Over the last year, Children’s has performed these mismatch heart transplants in five patients younger than 1 year old.
These transplants involve giving patients an organ from a donor with a different blood type, which in older children and adults would cause acute rejection. However, infants have not yet developed the antibodies that cause acute rejection of the organ. Because of this, ABO incompatible transplants have become a viable option for reducing the number of infants who die waiting for a donor heart to become available. The United Network for Organ Sharing is expanding its guidelines to include ABO transplants in children as old as 2.
Screening Children for Heart Disease Risk Helps Identify Parents Who are at Risk
Screening children for risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease can help identify parents at risk for the condition, providing an opportunity for medical intervention in both children and their parents, according to research by Evelyn Reis, MD, published online in the December issue of Pediatrics.
Dr. Reis and colleagues studied a community-based sample of 94 families – including 108 parents and 141 children – and found child/parent association was strong for cardiovascular risk factors including body mass index, waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, triglycerides and total cholesterol. Among its findings:
- Parents of children with hypertension are nearly 15 times more likely to have hypertension than parents of children without the condition.
- Parents of obese children are six times more likely to be obese than parents of non-obese children.
- Parents of children with elevated triglycerides are five times more likely to have hypertriglyceridemia than parents of children with normal triglyceride levels.
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Heart Camp Helps Children with Heart Disease Build Confidence and Friendships
The Dr. Bill Neches Heart Camp for Kids offers children with heart disease the chance to trade doctor’s appointments for pool time. The annual camp, co-sponsored by Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and the American Heart Association (AHA), gives kids a test-free, pain-free vacation and the opportunity to interact with nurses and doctors in a non-medical setting. This year, Heart Camp was held from June 13 – 17, and was featured in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Heart disease affects approximately 1 percent of all children born in the U.S., yet very few who have heart disease are aware of others with similar problems. As a result, many children with heart conditions often feel isolated. Heart Camp helps children and adolescents with heart disease feel less isolated by introducing them to other children like themselves.
Heart Camp is a program of the Heart Center at Children’s. The Heart Center cares for infants, children and young adults with all types of heart disease and for adults with congenital heart disease including many who have undergone heart transplants. Susan Miller, MD, and Linda Russo, MD, both Children’s cardiologists, serve as Heart Camp Medical Director and Assistant Medical Director, respectively. Keith McIntire, an adult Children’s cardiology patient, serves as volunteer director.
