My research focused on bone health research looking at the use of bisphosphonates, also known as BP treatment, in children. Researchers are interested in studying bone health for many reasons, there was a particular survey that revealed low clinician confidence in addressing children’s metabolic bone and mineral disorders due to inadequate training or due to how rare some of these diseases are, which is an issue because physicians want to make sure they optimize bone health. 

Lurie Children’s actually serves as a unique model for managing bone health with one of their recent studies highlighting the inconsistency in BP protocols among physicians and institutions. This is an issue because BP is prescribed for many diagnoses related to bone fragility in children but has only been FDA-approved for osteogenesis in adults. Therefore, the primary aim is to develop an evidence-based best practice protocol by analyzing the differences in BP treatment practices to optimize children bone health. To do this a redcap database was created looking at children treated with BP, and I specifically only looked at 10 variables and 30 patients. My results analysis highlighted (1) A demographic diversity of children being treated with BP at Lurie, (2) the range of diagnoses using this treatment, and (3) the inconsistencies in the dosing and type of BP medication used, as demonstrated in Figure 3. From this, we can conclude that an evidence-based protocol is needed to guide physicians all over the country when prescribing BP, increasing their confidence, and future analysis will also aim to identify gaps in clinical care and prevent adverse events.

In conclusion, since this research is still in the data entry phase, it has limitations due to a small sample size and limited variables. The future database will include more variables and additional patients from Lurie and other medical institutions like Boston Children’s Hospital- Harvard University, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia/CHOP, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital/Stanford, to build the database with more patients.