News

Rare, Deadly Genetic Disease Successfully Treated in Utero for First Time 

Toddler Thriving After Deaths of Siblings with Same Disorder   

Using a protocol developed at UC San Francisco, physicians have successfully treated a fetus with a devastating genetic disorder for the first time, and the child is now thriving as a one-year-old, a case study in the New England Journal of Medicine reports.  

“This treatment expands the repertoire of fetal therapies in a new direction,” said co-senior and corresponding author Tippi MacKenzie, MD, a pediatric surgeon at UCSF Benioff...

CHEO opens a second Intensive Care Unit. You can help keep kids out of it.

On the heels of adding beds to the existing Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), CHEO has opened a second PICU to address the overflow of critically ill babies and young children. Over the past few weeks, CHEO has seen an early arrival of the peak viral season driven by acute viral respiratory infections including RSV, flu, COVID and other viruses. These are at levels never before seen in CHEO’s 48-year history.

“Unprecedented...

Pediatric hospitals making mealtime safer for children, youth fed through a tube

November 3, 2022 – Ontario’s specialty pediatric hospitals are standardizing the type of feeding tube equipment they use for children and youth, making the administration of nutrition and medications safer. By end of January 2023, hospitals with the Children’s Health Coalition will all be using ENFit feeding tube connectors. 

ENFit, a global patient-safety initiative, makes mealtime and medication administration by tube as safe as possible by...

Care4Rare celebrates a decade of life-changing discoveries and innovations in clinical genetics

November 3, 2022 – For more than a decade, the Care4Rare Canada Consortium (Care4Rare) has provided answers for families living with undiagnosed rare disease. Care4Rare is an international trailblazer in rare disease, using cutting-edge technologies to discover the underlying cause while bringing diagnostic innovations into the clinical care pathway for rare disease.

More than one-third of the estimated 1 million Canadians living with rare disease lack a genetic diagnosis, despite lengthy and...

Taking action to meet the demands of a sustained surge at CHEO

Ottawa, Canada (November 2, 2022) — Like most pediatric hospitals across the country, CHEO is experiencing an unprecedented major surge. There is a significant increase in the number of young patients with acute viral respiratory infections including RSV, COVID and the seasonal flu. This means that the hospital is well beyond its capacity and wait times are, unfortunately, historically long.

To address this emergency situation, staff and leadership...