PiggyBankKids

Changing lives for babies and children.

Catherine Dhaliwal

 


 

I  thoroughly enjoyed working in the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory from when it was set up in 2004. I studied an eye disease called ‘retinopathy of prematurity’ (ROP). This affects babies born prematurely and can make them blind if it is left untreated. The only treatment that exists involves using a laser to make tiny burn-marks on the retina at the back of the eye. This has been shown to work very well and stops babies becoming blind. They still may have milder problems with their sight when they grow up and many children require glasses to correct their vision. It would be much better if we, as doctors, could prevent babies developing ROP in the first place. I have been trying to do this by studying how the blood vessels grow in a premature baby’s eye. I found that smaller babies suffer from ROP most and this seems to be related to a special growth hormone in their blood. This is exciting because in the future we could give a medicine containing this growth hormone to premature babies and we may therefore be able to prevent ‘retinopathy of prematurity’ from developing. The picture below shows how we have looking at the growing blood vessels in the laboratory. The blood vessels are shown in green and the nerve cells are shown in red.  

I have returned to clinical work am writing up my work for publication in medical journals and for a PhD thesis. I would like to thank Piggybankkids for this wonderful opportunity and look forward to keeping in touch with the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory in the future.

Full report on Catherine's project

Catherine has completed her research into retinopathy of the newborn, the tragic complication of prematurity which if untreated commonly results in blindness.  Thereafter returning to clinical work she has decided to pursue a career in histopathology with the aim of becoming a consultant perinatal pathologist. This is a shortage specialty which is essential to the overall success of the research programme and continuing role for Catherine in this capacity in the longer term is an exciting prospect for the programme.

Publications

Dhaliwal C, Fleck B, Wright E, Graham C, McIntosh N. Incidence of retinopathy of prematurity in Lothian, Scotland, from 1990-2004. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2008;93(6):F422-6.

Dhaliwal C, Wright E, Graham C, McIntosh N, Fleck BW. Wide-field digital retinal imaging versus binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy for retinopathy of prematurity screening: a two-observer prospective, randomised comparison.  Br J Ophthalmol 2009;93(3):355-9.

Dhaliwal CA, Fleck BW, Wright E, Graham C, McIntosh N. Retinopathy of prematurity in small-for-gestational age infants compared to appropriate-for-gestational age infants. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2009;94(3):F193-5.

Dhaliwal CA, Wright E, McIntosh N, Dhaliwal K, Fleck BW. Pain in neonates during screening for retinopathy of prematurity using binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy and wide-field digital retinal imaging: a randomised comparison. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed 2009 Oct 8 [Epub ahead of print].

Oral and Poster Presentations

Pain in neonates during screening for retinopathy of prematurity using wide-field digital retinal imaging and binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy. Poster and oral presentation at The Neonatal Society Golden Jubilee Meeting: Durham June 2009.
Retinal examination: is digital imaging superior to ophthalmoscopy? Presented at Child Life and Health Research in Progress Seminar and Tommy’s Meeting: May and June 2009.
Interaction of oxygen and nutrition effects in a rat model of ROP. Presented at Child Life and Health Research in Progress Seminar: September 2009.

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