Two Registered Nurses at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles Receive Grants from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation

LOS ANGELES – Rita Secola, R.N., MSN, CPON, and Mary Nelson, R.N., M.S., CPNP, from Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, are both 2009 nursing grant recipients from the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.
Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation awarded $246,300 in grants, designed to improve the quality of care and life for young cancer patients and their families, to nurses at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, the University of Arizona and the University of California, San Francisco.
Having awarded medical research grants to leading hospitals and institutions across the nation, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation felt it was important to invest in helping nurses find better ways to care for children undergoing cancer treatment.
“Along with funding cutting edge medical research to find causes and cures for childhood cancer, we think it is equally important to improve the quality of care and life for childhood cancer patients and their families,” said Liz Scott, Alex’s mom and director of development for the Foundation.  “Nurses have direct interaction with cancer patients as they undergo treatments, giving them a unique view into ways their patients’ lives can be improved; we are here to help them do just that.”
 Ms. Secola, Hematology/Oncology/Bone Marrow Transplant clinical manager and doctoral student at the UCLA School of Nursing, received a $26,300 two-year grant in the “Intermediate Nurse Researcher” category, to study Central venous catheter related bloodstream infections in pediatric cancer.
“For the majority of children diagnosed with cancer every year,” said Ms. Secola, “treatment will include the use of a central venous catheter (CVC).  The CVC maintains reliable intravenous access for medications and treatments, but also is associated with a risk of infection.”
This risk is particularly important in children with cancer because their immune function remains decreased throughout the treatment period.  “Our research study hopes to reduce CVC related infections in children with cancer,” Ms. Secola said.
Ms. Nelson, a pediatric nurse practitioner in Imaging Services/Anesthesia at Childrens Hospital, is a doctoral student at the UCLA School of Nursing, and received a $20,000 two-year grant in the “Mentored Nurse Researcher” category, to study Neuronal damage, neurocognitive losses and quality of life following high-dose chemotherapy in children with brain tumors.

“For those who survive brain tumors, neurocognitive deficits are common in the areas of memory, problem-solving and planning,” said Ms. Nelson.  “These deficits have been linked not only to poor educational attainment, but also to behavioral and social difficulties, all of which may contribute to poor quality of life.”
According to Ms. Nelson, there is some evidence that chemotherapy alone may contribute to cognitive effects in patients, but there is little research in the area of these effects in children treated in this manner for brain tumors.
“The overall objective of my study is to determine whether children treated with high-dose chemotherapy for brain tumors will display key areas of white matter and gray matter injury due to this treatment, which results in deficits in cognitive functioning and decreased quality of life,” Ms. Nelson said.
Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation emerged from the front yard lemonade stand of cancer patient Alexandra “Alex” Scott (1996-2004).  With the vision of finding a cure for all childhood cancers, Alex set out to hold lemonade stands to raise funds to do just that.  Nearly 10 years later, the Foundation bearing her name funds both medical and nursing research, which aims to not only find better treatments and cures for all childhood cancer, but to improve the quality of care and life for children and their families fighting the disease.  To date, ALSF has raised more than $25 million toward fulfilling Alex’s dream of finding a cure, funding over 100 research projects nationally, including those examining leukemia, brain tumors, neuroblastoma, Wilm’s tumor, lymphoma and osteosarcoma, among others.
Founded in 1901, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles has been treating the most seriously ill and injured children in Los Angeles for more than a century, and it is acknowledged throughout the United States and around the world for its leadership in pediatric and adolescent health. Childrens Hospital is one of America’s premier teaching hospitals, affiliated with the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California since 1932.  The Saban Research Institute of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles is among the largest and most productive pediatric research facilities in the United States. 
Since 1990, U.S. News & World Report and its panel of board-certified pediatricians have named Childrens Hospital Los Angeles one of the top pediatric facilities in the nation.  Childrens Hospital Los Angeles is one of only 10 children’s hospitals in the nation – and the only children’s hospital on the West Coast – ranked in all 10 pediatric specialties in the U.S. News & World Report rankings and named to the magazine’s “Honor Roll” of children’s hospitals.