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Pediatrics
One-Hour Concurrent Session

Addressing the Z-Axis of Critical Illness: Sex and Development as Variables

Tuesday, February 25, 2025
3:45pm – 4:45pm Eastern Time
Location: W311E
CE: 1

Most clinical trials in critical care have failed to demonstrate significant differences between control and intervention arms. The historical lack of sophistication in separating patients by phenotype has likely limited discoverable differences of an intervention. The dynamic nature of critical illness mandates an approach based on how the disease evolves. Data show clinical and biologic heterogeneity across patients, even among similar phenotypic and demographic characteristics. Understanding biologic development (organ maturation, epigenetic modifications, senescence) may afford new possibilities for prognostic enrichment of targeted therapeutics. Speakers will describe emerging evidence from bench and bedside of differences across sex and age related to specific critical illness syndromes. Distinctions among neonate, toddler, school-age, and adolescent patients mandate a more personalized approach to pediatric critical illness. This session is relevant to audiences across the ages of critical illness, as well as surgeons and allied health professionals such as pharmacists and advanced practice nurses.

Learning Objectives:

  • Describe the evolutionary and biological changes in immune development for age
  • Appreciate the importance of development, sex, and age on pharmacologic management
  • Identify differences in injury response and recovery from common critical illnesses (e.g., traumatic brain injury, acute respiratory distress syndrome) as they relate to development

Presentations:

  • 3:50pm – 4:00pm Eastern Time
    The Age Spectrum of Sepsis

    James L. Wynn, MD (he/him/his) – University of Florida

  • 4:00pm – 4:10pm Eastern Time
    The Rx Axis by Age and Sex

    Sana J. Said, PharmD – Comer Children's Hospital

  • 4:10pm – 4:20pm Eastern Time
    Is Plasticity a Brain Benefit?

    Dennis Simon, MD – Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC

  • 4:30pm – 4:40pm Eastern Time
    Sex and Adaptation for Kidney Injury

    Dana Fuhrman, DO, MS (she/her/hers) – Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC