At Boston Children’s Hospital, our discoveries in the laboratory strengthen the care we provide at each child's bedside. In addition to providing expert care today, we’re searching for ways to improve the lives of children with SAIDs tomorrow by conducting research to understand the disease better and find new treatments.
Research highlights
- In a recent study, we found that tonsillectomy is an effective treatment for curing patients with PFAPA. Researchers in our Rheumatology Program continue to test the tonsils removed from PFAPA patients to understand better what might cause SAID and how best to treat children.
- We created a research app called Feverprints to collect temperatures from hundreds of participants from around the country. We found that average oral body temperatures are usually 97.7℉, and that fevers should be considered with temperatures 99.5℉ or higher. However, there was much variation of average temperatures during the day, with the lowest temperatures occurring around 4 a.m. and the highest temperatures occurring around 6 p.m. Thus, a temperature of 99.5℉ in the afternoon may be within normal limits, whereas the same temperature occurring at 4 a.m. should be considered a fever.
- In another study, we described a gene defect (RELA) as the cause of the SAID in a family.
- We identified that patient’s polyarticular arthritis, vasculitis, and lung disease was caused by a SAID called SAVI after similar unexplained conditions in three generations of the patient’s family.
- We have shown colchicine can be effective in majority of patients with undifferentiated SAID in the largest cohort of these patients published so far.
- We have worked to establish consensus treatment protocols for chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis (CRMO, also known as chronic nonbacterial osteomyelitis, CNO).
- We collaborated with an international group to make recommendations on the management of people with IL-1 mediated autoinflammatory diseases.
- Doctors from the Autoinflammatory Diseases Clinic worked with Boston Children’s immunology researchers to discover a new SAID by sequencing the gene causing the disease: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5502421/.