Innovations in Review 2023
For over a century, our team has provided comprehensive care to children and adolescents. Physicians at NewYork‑Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and NewYork‑Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital are committed to treating complex conditions, including congenital heart defects, pediatric brain tumors, and more, with the most innovative approaches and the highest quality of care.
Read more about our top research and key innovations from 2023:
The First-Ever Infant Domino Partial Heart Transplant
First Whole-Genome Sequencing Study of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Could Lead to Novel Therapeutics
Total Artificial Heart a Game Changer for Transplant Patients
Innovating Pediatric Brain Tumor Treatments
NewYork-Presbyterian is one of the nation’s leaders in organ transplants. In May 2023, an integrated team of cardiologists and heart surgeons at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia performed the first-ever infant domino partial heart transplant in the world, and the first partial heart transplant in a pediatric patient in New York. Two infants born with different heart conditions benefited from this groundbreaking procedure—the first child received a heart transplant from a deceased donor and was also the living donor for the second child’s partial heart transplant. What made the procedure so novel was that while the domino donor’s heart was not strong enough to function normally, the heart valves were a perfect match for the other young patient, who was in need of valve surgery. This allowed the care team to perform what is called a living allogeneic heart valve transplant, demonstrating that a domino partial heart transplant can occur with a living heart donor.
Dr. Lisa Giulino Roth, a pediatric oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine, recently led the first whole-genome sequencing study of Hodgkin lymphoma, the most common cancer in adolescents and young adults. Among the study’s many complex challenges was isolating malignant Reed-Sternberg cells, which represent less than 1% of the tumor. In doing so, the team first isolated 500–3000 Reed- Sternberg cells from stromal cells in samples, and then optimized their sequencing platforms for extremely low input. The investigators also clarified the molecular evolution of the disease. Published in Blood Cancer Discovery, this groundbreaking study could contribute to the development of novel targeted therapies and expand the use of existing treatments, based on the identification of driver mutations.
For some patients, a bridge to transplantation is needed to allow the patient to gain strength before receiving a new organ. Last year, a team at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia implanted a total artificial heart in a pediatric patient—one of the youngest and the first in the Northeast. Very few places in the world could perform such a procedure, but experts in the Program for Pediatric Cardiomyopathy, Heart Failure, and Transplantation have been at the forefront of the development of new and innovative therapies, including the world’s first successful pediatric heart transplant in 1984. Several months after receiving the total artificial heart, the patient was listed for a transplant and received a new heart.
NewYork-Presbyterian’s pediatric neurologists and neurosurgeons are constantly looking for improved ways to treat neurological diseases and disorders, including rare and potentially-fatal pediatric brain tumors. In 2023, Dr. Mark Souweidane, Director of Pediatric Neurological Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine, launched a clinical trial using intra-arterial chemotherapy (IAC) for choroid plexus carcinoma. In 2023, the study enrolled the first patient in the world—had previously undergone several unsuccessful surgeries to remove the tumor— and, using IAC, successfully obtained a gross total excision of the tumor due to decrease in size from the therapy.
Improving early detection and intervention for newborns at risk for neurodevelopmental impairment is a hallmark of NewYork‑Presbyterian. The Columbia Neonatal Growth and Development Clinic (GraD) and the Cerebral Palsy Early Detection and Intervention Initiative are two innovative programs run by neonatologists Drs. Sandhya Brachio and Faith Kim. In both, physicians are working to standardize and implement a CP early-detection initiative in the NICU and GraD Clinic at NewYork‑Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.
