The primary objective of this Core Center for Clinical Research (CCCR) is to promote impactful research in pediatric rheumatic and non-inflammatory musculoskeletal diseases (PMSKD) by the local and national Research Community with a focus on enhancing well-established research programs and institutional expertise in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), childhood- onset systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE) and juvenile-onset fibromyalgia (JFM). This CCCR, which is called the Pediatric musculOskeletal & RheumaTology Innovation COre center (PORTICO), will be served by a Patient Assessment Resource Core (PARC) which will offer cutting-edge, age-appropriate clinical assessment tools for capturing the benefits of health interventions and delineating PMSKD phenotypes. The proposed Director of PARC is Charles Dumoulin, PhD and the Associate Director is Esi Morgan, MD, MSCE, both well-established researchers.
The specific aims of the PARC are: (1) Provision of state-of-the-art imaging services to support research studies in PMSKD, (2) Development of new imaging-based methods and scoring systems to assess the severity of PMSKD and the efficacy of novel PMSKD treatments, and (3) Development of data display tools to quantify treatment impact as measured by patient reported outcome (PRO) assessments, imaging data, and biomarkers for research innovations to inform clinical decision making. With the PARC, PORTICO proposes to establish an imaging core that is the first of its kind to focus on PMSKD and provide services and greater access to innovative non-invasive imaging technologies (e.g. ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, biomechanical assessment). Accelerating the Research Community work in the area of functional MRI methods of neuroimaging will result in new discovery in understanding of pain in JFM, JIA, and also in the study of neuropsychiatric manifestations of SLE. Other areas include application of MRI to study of lung disease in systemic JIA and the establishment of needed protocols and scoring systems in musculoskeletal ultrasound. PARC will also support researchers to integrate PROs into research studies. In collaboration with PORTICO's Methodology Core, PARC will provide the Research Community opportunity to pair PROs with imaging references, biomarkers and genomic information in data--rich electronic dashboard visualization in support of personalized medicine. Outreach and engagement with multi-center rheumatology networks will extend the reach of these advances to the rheumatology community in service to improving patient outcomes.
