The Section of Pediatric Cardiology at Baylor College of Medicine/the Heart Center at Texas Children's Hospital is a leader in clinical research. Noteworthy accomplishments include the first transplant in a small child, the development of pediatric electrophysiology, inventions in cardiac catheterization and intervention, and the discovery of disease-causing genes and viral markers of acquired heart disease.
Identification of the underlying causes of heart disease, as well as translating these discoveries to the care of children and young adults, improves treatment options for all patients with heart disease.
Research studies are focused on heart failure, cardiomyopathy, and transplant, cardiac catheterization, echocardiography/magnetic resonance imaging, electrophysiology, cardiovascular intensive care, cardiovascular genetics, including:
- Viral mechanisms of cardiac rejection in pediatric transplant patients
- Predictors of poor outcome, arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in pediatric patients with dilated cardiomyopathy
- Wolff-Parkinson-White and dilated cardiomyopathy
- Arginine vasopressin levels as a predictor of outcome in children with congestive heart failure
- Use of nesiritide in the pediatric heart failure population
- Evaluation of BNP levels in the pediatric population – utility in children with cardiomyopathy, status post cardiac transplantation, and congestive heart failure
- Treatment and outcome of heart failure in patients with muscular dystrophy
- Effects of beta-blockade on aortic root growth in children with Marfan syndrome
- Cardiac and overall outcome in children with trisomy 18