All Articles on Pediatrics

• CT scans—with radiation and cancer risk—rose in children

  Use of computed tomography (CT) scans—and thus exposure to ionizing radiation—increased over 15 years in children at a set of nonprofit health care delivery systems in a new study. But currently available strategies could greatly reduce this cancer risk, according to the HMORN Cancer Research Network study, published in JAMA Pediatrics.
• Young children who miss well-child visits are more likely to be hospitalized

  Young children who missed more than half of recommended well-child visits had up to twice the risk of hospitalization as children who attended most of their visits, according to a study published today in the American Journal of Managed Care. The study included more than 20,000 children enrolled at Group Health Cooperative.
• Less reaction to DTaP vaccine given in kids’ thighs than arms

  Children age 12 to 35 months who receive DTaP vaccine in their thigh muscle rather than their arm are around half as likely to be brought in for medical attention for an injection-site reaction. So says a new study of 1.4 million children at Group Health and seven other Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) centers across the country, e-published on January 14 in Pediatrics.
• Can new approaches to talking about vaccines boost childhood immunization rates?

  Washington’s highest-in-the-nation immunization exemption rate may be inviting a full-blown outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease.
• The Group Health Biostatistics unit

  The Group Health Biostatistics unit: Team science at its best.
• Reactions to last DTaP vaccine not prevented

  A red splotch forms where most preschoolers get their fifth, and last, shot of the acellular diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTaP) vaccine, and it can last a few days. Neither of two common over-the-counter drugs—ibuprofen (Advil) and acetaminophen (Tylenol)—help prevent this side effect, according to a Group Health Cooperative study appearing in the March issue of Pediatrics.