NIH Awards Nationwide Children’s Nearly $2M to Study Soft Tissue Tumors in Children

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $1.9 million to help investigators at Nationwide Children’s Hospital search for biomarkers that may be linked to the development and outcome of hemangiomas, the most common soft tissue tumor in children. A hemangioma is an abnormal buildup of blood vessels in the skin or internal organs. 

“Hemangiomas can be extremely disfiguring and life-threatening, resulting in significant distress for the families of affected children,” said the grant’s principal investigator, Gayle Gordillio, MD, director of the Hemangioma and Vascular Malformations Clinic at Nationwide Children’s.  “A critical barrier to improving the clinical outcomes for affected children is the lack of low-risk treatment options. The most effective treatment options all have life-threatening side effects.”

As part of the study, investigators at both Nationwide Children’s and the OSU Medical Center, will examine urine and blood samples from patients with hemangioma in children up to age 2 comparing them with samples from age-matched healthy children to determine how these tumors may be formed. 

For complete details, see the release from Nationwide Children’s Hospital.