Alpharetta Resident Helps Babies With Heart Problems

An Alpharetta resident is the lead investigator in the Emory-Children’s Pediatric Research Center's participation in the Pediatric Heart Network's core site, which could lead to better treatments for children in the future.

Dr. William Border is the director of Noninvasive Imaging and Medical Director of Cardiovascular Imaging Research Core (CIRC) at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. 

One of the biggest problems in pediatric research is having too few patients to do long-term study.

"There are not that many patients," Border said.

Adult studies might have 20,000 patients enrolled, while pediatric studies not in this network might have 20 patients. That's where the National Institute of Health (NIH) came in 10 years ago through its National Hearth, Blood and Lung Institute. Border said it got together some of the biggest pediatric centers around the country to work as a network, providing patients for studies in larger numbers.

Last year Border was one of the people to put together an application, and it was accepted to be the ninth center participating. The Emory-Children's Pediatric Research Center will receive $1.7 million in grant money starting in September and lasting for five years to fund research coordination, helping to enroll patients in different studies.

(For a look at some of the studies now active, visit the Pediatric Heart Network's Web site.)

pediatricheartnetwork.com

"Probably in terms of a direct affect locally, there may be a trial down the road that there's an investigative medication that would be potentially helpful that they could have access to during the trial," Border said.

Most of the effort will be for the greater good of the pediatric community, he said.

Just the other day Border had an 18-year-old patient location who was born with a transposition of the great arteries visit Children's in Alpharetta. The patient had an operation to fix that.

He had been enrolled in some early studies at Boston Children's Hospital on the neurological outcome of someone with his medical history. He's kept in touch with the long-term study, being part of research for 18 years.

That same day Border also saw 6-month-old Ashley Good, who also had a transposition of her arteries. She could be involved in studies just like the 18-year-old.

She underwent open heart surgery four days after birth to correct the transposition of her great arteries.

Her father, Reed Good, said their first two children, ages 7 and 9, had no health problems.

"It just so happened through the course of normal screening" for a higher-risk pregnancy–his wife, Jennifer, was 37–that they found problems with their daughter.

Ashley Good was delivered at Northside Hospital's main campus, but her parents were prepared when she needed to be moved to the Children's Sibley Heart Center.

Within four hours of her birth on Feb. 26, Ashley took an ambulance ride with her father to the center. It was challenging for the family, with mom recuperating at Northside and their baby at another hospital.

In addition to fixing the arteries, Good said they also fixed a hole in her heart and corrected the narrowing of the aorta as well.

"She was in the hospital for right at two weeks, which is incredible to us. It's amazing to me what they were able to do in terms of her post-op recovery," Good said.

Good is all for participating in studies.

"One of the things it does, it's going to arm them with information to help them prepare people from the get go. The more information you get, the more comfortable you feel about making decisions you need to make," he said.

The Goods, who live in the Cumming-Suwanee area, had the opportunity to talk to families who traveled from across the country to the Emory-Children’s Pediatric Research Center.

If they can learn from his child and apply that to care, knowing that this is a network of facilities across the country, Good said "It's all the better.

"Through what they pick up today and learn tomorrow, that is going to make the future so much better," Good said.

"It gives us an opportunity to really try and answer definitively some of the questions that can really impact care. That to me is the most impactful part of this Pediatric Heart Network," Border said.