Pancreas Care Center | Cincinnati Children's

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At age 12, Bella Pedraja was a competitive swimmer, enjoying life with family and friends in her hometown in Florida. But one night everything took a turn when stomach pain landed her in the hospital. More hospital stays would follow as doctors tried to figure out what was wrong.
“Seventh grade, like that summer, I was in and out of the hospital. I'd be two weeks in one week out, two weeks, and one week out,” said Bella Pedraja. “I never got to spend time with like any of my friends. I wouldn't be able to do stuff that I would normally be able to do.”
Bella was diagnosed with pancreatitis. It’s a condition that happens when the pancreas, the gland behind the stomach that helps with digestion, becomes inflamed. The intense attacks can last for a few days or keep coming back.
Bella’s doctors in Florida recommend the Pancreas Care Center at Cincinnati Children’s for care.
It’s one of only a few centers in the United States that is dedicated to caring for children with pancreatic diseases. It is also recognized as a National Pancreas Foundation Center of Excellence.
“The Pancreas Care Center's main goal is to have children with pancreatic disease live a normal life while they have pancreatitis,” said Maisam Abu-El-Haija, MD, MS, medical director of the Pancreas Care Center at Cincinnati Children’s. “It is a disease where we still don't have a cure for it yet. While we're actively working on research and those avenues, we do strive to address all the elements that could be affected from pancreatitis so that children could be healthy and functioning and do the normal activities that they enjoy.”
When he was 18 months old, Elliott Elam of Michigan was also diagnosed with pancreatitis. He was hospitalized close to 20 times in two years.
“My belly was hurting, my everything was hurting,” said Elliot Elam.
“It’s just, it's so hard to see your child in pain, and to not be able to do anything to help it. And to just see that over and over and over again, is just heartbreaking,” said Caryn Elam, Elliot’s Mom. “And they don't understand when they're little.”
The Elam family also reached out to the Pancreas Care Center given the extensive team of specialists across a multi-disciplinary team. This includes advanced treatments such as endoscopic therapy, a nonsurgical technique for testing and treating conditions that affect a child’s gastro-intestinal system.
“One thing that I focus on in our Pancreas Care Center is endoscopic therapy. And there are different modalities we can use including endoscopic ultrasound and endoscopy retrograde cholangiopancreatography or ERCP,” said David Vitale, MD, director of the Interventional Endoscopy Center at Cincinnati Children’s. “And those enable us to both evaluate the pancreas and the level of disease that's been existing in the pancreas and to treat with therapy for pancreatic duct stones, pancreatic duct strictures or narrowing as needed for each individual patient.”
More severe cases of chronic pancreatitis may require surgical therapy. Cincinnati Children’s is one of only a few institutions in the United States offering an advanced treatment called total pancreatectomy with islet auto transplantation or TPIAT. The complex procedure involves the removal of the pancreas, which is then broken down, and insulin-producing cells called islets are isolated.
“We reconstruct the GI tract, we put the islet cells back after our laboratory gives them back to us. And we inject them into the liver with the hopes of the islet cells to regrow and start working, producing insulin to prevent diabetes,” said Juan Gurria, MD, director, Surgical Critical Care, Division of General and Thoracic Pediatric Surgery at Cincinnati Children’s. “This procedure takes, you know, between nine and 12 hours. It's a lengthy and challenging journey for the patients, but we're right along their side for the entirety of their care.”
Elliot and Bella have undergone TPIAT surgeries, and both successfully recovered. They are back in their hometowns enjoying their favorite activities.
Bella is back in the pool competing.
“I swim every day,” said Bella. “And if I don't swim, I'm at school, or with my friends.”
As for Elliott, one of his favorite things to do is dance.
“Thank you doctors and nurses for helping me!” Elliott said.