Richard Noto, MD, Research Gets Top Honor at National Conference
December 22, 2005
Dr. Richard A. Noto, a nationally recognized pediatric endocrinologist who heads the Diabetes and Endocrine Center for Children & Young Adults Children’s & Woman Physicians of Westchester at Phelps Memorial Hospital Center, and his team of researchers took first place during Genentech, Inc.’s, National Cooperative Growth Study (NCGS) annual symposium held in San Francisco recently.
Genentech, Inc., a leader in the biotechnology industry, has developed a number of products to treat life-threatening medical disorders. Sponsored by Genentech, NCGS is the largest observational database of children with growth disorders in the U.S., specifically, NCGS collects data on patients being treated with Nutropin, a growth hormone, which Genentech developed and manufactures.
The eight-member team, which included Richard Noto, lead investigator; Kamolika Datta, research coordinator; Daniel Ricotta, summer intern, research assistant; Claire Elpenord, medical student; Christopher Purtell, summer intern, research assistant; Steven Lugo, summer intern, research assistant; Scott Forman, M.D., ophthalmologist, New York Medical College; and Kevin Connelly, biostatistician, Genentech, Inc.; presented an abstract on Recurrent Intracranial Hypertension Following Advancement to Adolescent Growth Hormone Dosage and the NCGS Experience with Intracranial Hypertension. The abstract of the study, which compared Noto’s findings with other NCGS centers, was awarded the blue ribbon. Noto observed in a case study that after treating a patient with the prescribed dosage of growth hormone, the person developed symptoms associated with intracranial hypertension, the general name for the disorders in which fluid pressure within the skull is too high.
After comparing the data, the study concluded that intracranial hypertension during growth hormone therapy is low with an extremely low recurrence rate. However, when physicians are confronted with a patient with previous intracranial hypertension or other risk factors for the development of intracranial hypertension, clinicians should consider slowly increasing the growth hormone dose to the desired level of therapy.
Dr. Noto’s center is one of 372 research facilities in the U.S. and Canada, treating more than 50,000 pediatric patients. Data is shared only after patients have given permission. NCGS investigators have many publications to their credit in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Pediatrics and the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. Richard Noto received his medical degree from Mount Sinai Medical Center; completed his residency in Pediatrics at Beth Israel Medical Center; and a Fellowship in pediatric endocrinology at North Shore University Hospital – Manhasset, NY.
Phelps Memorial Hospital is a 235-bed community hospital with 450 physicians, representing 34 different medical specialties. Phelps is the Westchester Satellite for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, a clinical affiliate of Mount Sinai Hospital, and the newest member of the New York Presbyterian Healthcare System.