Inflammatory Bowel Disease Medical and Surgical Program
Children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have specific medical needs and require comprehensive and dedicated care to achieve the best outcome and best control of their disease. The pediatric gastroenterology division at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles has a dedicated team of medical and surgical physicians, researchers, dietitians, social services and nurse specialists that provide state of the therapy to meet the unique challenges of this disease.
Our Vision: To care for children, adolescents, young adults and families with IBD, advancing knowledge, utilizing evidence based clinical and bench research.
CHLA IBD Center
The IBD team is dedicated to providing the best care and to optimize outcome and care of children and adolescents with IBD. The center offers a comprehensive on-stop program for evaluation and management of new and established patients as well as offers a consultation and a second opinion service for complex cases. The surgical team is integrated with the medical team and supported by dedicated pathologists, radiologists, dietitians, social workers and nurse specialists.
Santa Monica Clinic
We treat pediatric patients that are suspected to or carry an existing diagnosis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) at Santa Monica Ambulatory Care Center. Hillel Naon, MD director of our IBD Center will partner with Marci Reiss, DSW from the IBD Support Foundation to provide comprehensive medical and psycho social care for children with IBD. Please contact our Santa Monica Outpatient Center to learn more.
Commonly Treated Disorders
- Inflammatory Bowel Disease
- Ulcerative Colitis
- Crohn’s Disease
- Indeterminate Colitis
- Perianal Crohn’s disease
- Fistulizing Crohn’s disease
- Stricture forming Crohn’s disease
What to Expect During Your First Visit
During the visit to the CHLA IBD center, a team of health care providers will be meeting you to gather information on different aspects of your child’s disease. Depending on your specific needs, in addition to meeting our nursing and pediatric gastroenterologists members of the team, you many meet with our dietitians, surgeons, and social workers.
Research and Clinical Trials
The IBD team members are dedicated to the understanding of why children develop IBD and how to best treat this disease. Our teams of basic research scientists are discovering ways to understand and modify the gut mucosal immune system. There are many clinical studies being performed at CHLA to improve outcomes and therapies for pediatric IBD. The IBD research scientists at CHLA have 7 Million dollars in funding from the NIH for both Basic and Clinical Research. The research team is also funded through other several grants including Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America, and generous Foundation support.
Dr. Mark Frey Lab
- Promoting intestinal repair and shaping innate immunity with neuregulin growth factor proteins
Dr. Sonia Michail Lab
- The role of the gut Microbiome and fecal transplant (FMT) in pediatric ulcerative colitis. A clinical and translantional study to understand the role of fecal transplant in children with ulcerative colitis and how it impacts the gut microbiome.
- IBD app. A smartphone application to allow children with IBD to communicate clinical disease activity information and receive a report card on how well they are doing.
Improve Care Now
Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles is part of the Improve Care Now (ICN), which is the largest pediatric IBD quality improvement network a quality improvement and learning network. The network includes more than 90 member institutions in the United States and Europe. The remission rates of members of this network have improved significantly.
Transforming health care and outcomes for children and adolescents with chronic health conditions is difficult within the current health care system. The project will take advantage of recent advances in information technology, implementation research and collaborative networks to develop new models and methods to enable patients, families, clinicians, and scientists to work together to simultaneously improve care, create innovations in care delivery, and generate new knowledge.
Industry Supported Research Projects
Several active industry sponsored therapeutic trials are being performed to provide an option for the newly developed therapies for children with IBD.
GEM (Genetic Environment Microbial)
The GEM Project is an international research study attempting to determine possible causes for Crohn’s Disease by following healthy individuals who are at a higher risk for developing the disease over time. We encourage healthy individuals who have a sibling and/or parent with Crohn’s Disease to join the effort and help to find a cause.
ENVISION - AbbVie
A Multicenter, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study of the Human Anti-TNF Monoclonal Antibody Adalimumab in Pediatric Subjects with Moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis. The objective of this registry is to obtain long-term safety and clinical status information on pediatric patients with UC.
DEVELOP - Janssen
A multicenter, Prospective, Long-term, Observational Registry of Pediatric Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The objective of this registry is to obtain long-term safety and clinical status information on pediatric patients with IBD (ie, CD, UC, or IC)
SECURE – UCB, INC
The objective of this registry is to measure the safety outcomes among Cimzia patients compared to a different CD treatment regimen
CAPE - Abbvie
A Long-Term Non-Interventional Registry to Assess Safety and Effectiveness of Humira® (Adalimumab) in Pediatric Patients with Moderately to Severely Active Crohn's Disease (CD)
The primary objective of this Registry is to evaluate long-term safety of Humira in pediatric patients (between the ages of 6 and 17 years inclusive at the time of enrollment) with moderately to severely active CD who are prescribed and treated in accordance with the approved local Humira product label under the conditions of routine clinical setting. The impact of treatment interruptions on the safety and effectiveness of Humira will be evaluated.
ADAPT
A Randomized Double-blind Pharmacokinetic study of Ustekinumab (Stelara®, Janssen Pharmaceuticals) in Pediatric Subjects with Moderately to Severely Active Crohn's Disease
Infliximab Escalation Study - Jassen
A multicenter, prospective, open label study in pediatric patients with IBD who are receiving infliximab therapy. The study will include 2 groups, a Dose Escalation Group (will received 10mg/kg of study medication every 8 weeks) and Reference Group (will receive 5mg/kg of the study medication every 8 weeks)
