Young Investigator Award 2025

In 2006, the Foundation Acta Paediatrica launched the annual Young Investigator Award, which recognises the first authors of important papers who are up to 45 years of age. The winning candidates are selected by the Chairman of the Foundation and the Swedish Paediatric Society. The prize was established to honour the journal's previous long-standing Editor-in-Chief, Rolf Zetterström. We are pleased to announce that the prize for the best paper published in 2025 will be shared by two Swedish authors, Lina Broström from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and Tim Malmström from Lund University and the Department of Paediatrics in Kalmar. A prospective study by Lina Broström and her co-authors compared the neonatal characteristics and outcomes of Swedish children who were born extremely preterm, with and without low-grade intra-ventricular haemorrhage (IVH) [1]. It focused on 103 children who were born in Stockholm from 2004 to 2007 at less than 27 weeks of gestation. None of them had major brain injuries. The authors reported that the children who had low-grade IVH were sicker during the neonatal period than the children in the no IVH group. They also had more complications. The children in the low-grade IVH group had been born at lower gestational ages, spent more days on mechanical ventilation, and had a higher incidence of necrotising enterocolitis. They were also more likely to undergo surgical ligation for patent ductus arteriosus than the children in the no IVH group. Despite these findings, Lina Broström and her co-authors reported that the children in the low-grade IVH group did not have a smaller brain volume of cerebrum or cerebellum at 10 years of age than the no IVH group. In addition, they did not have worse neurodevelopment outcomes than the no IVH group when they reached 12 years of age. These similar findings between the two groups are very encouraging. Urinary tract dilatation is often detected during the prenatal period and is frequently caused by ureteropelvic junction obstruction. Children need repeated examinations to detect and prevent their kidney function deteriorating. Tim Malmström and his co-authors explored whether this diagnostic burden could be reduced [2]. Children with prenatally detected unilateral ureteropelvic junction obstruction were identified from a prenatal hydronephrosis registry. The anteroposterior renal pelvic diameter was used to describe the dilatation. Cases with bilateral renal pelvis dilatation or other urinary tract malformations were excluded. Most adverse events, such as urinary tract infections, occurred during the first year of life and then the frequency reduced. An anteroposterior pelvic diameter of less than 15 mm at 12 months of age was associated with an uneventful follow up. Tim Malmström and his co-authors concluded that a stable anteroposterior renal pelvic diameter during the first year could help to identify children who need fewer follow-up visits. It also seems safe to end these visits when the children reach 2 years of age if there is no increase in the anteroposterior pelvic diameter during the first year. These visits could also cease after the first year if the child has not had any adverse events and has had a stable anteroposterior pelvic diameter of less than 15 mm during that period. Göran Wennergren: writing – original draft, writing – review and editing.