2 months ago
Share
Much of that national research takes place right there in Little Rock at the Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute; studies in which parents might want to involve their own child.
The number of children with peanut allergy is only one medical problem that Arkansas Children's Hospital's research institute has been conducting clinical trials on for years now.
"A clinical trial is a study looking at a treatment or vaccine compared to something else to see if it works or has a benefit to that child." Says Dr. Jose Romero.
Without patients willing to take part in our clinical trials, our research wouldn't be as successful as it is.
"Clinical trials have been going on for a long, long time and in some form or another, they've been going on for several hundred years."
It's important that research for treatments used for kids actually be conducted on kids.
Romero says, "Because children are not little adults, the way they react to a drug or a vaccine or a procedure is very different than the way an adult would. Because of that we need to understand how the drugs work and the vaccines work in children in order to better treat them."
The commitment it takes to participate in a clinical trial depends on the trial itself.
"In some cases it may be a single visit in other times it may be visits for over several years," he explains. "Some of the clinical trials that I'm conducting we have babies that we will be following for up to five years because the treatments are so novel that we want to see if it makes a difference in our disease or not."
Arkansas Children's Hospital has several clinical trials under way. For more information just click the related link to the right.
