An MRI scan can explain in more detail and detect head, neck, thoracic, abdominal and spinal malformations in unborn babies, he found a large multidisciplinary study led by King’s College London with Evelina Children’s Hospital London, Great Hospital Ormond Street and UCL.
In the study, published today in Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, the team of researchers and clinicians demonstrate in detail the ways in which MRI scanning can reveal malformations, including their impact on surrounding structures. Importantly, they note that MRI is a very safe procedure for pregnant women and their babies.
They say the work is extremely useful both for clinicians who care for babies before birth and for teams that plan the care of the baby after delivery.
Recent research has focused on correction for fetal movement in fetal brain MRI and, more recently, for imaging the fetal heart. However, there is a growing demand for assessment of the entire fetus by MRI and recently research from the King’s College School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences at Evelina London Children’s Hospital has been possible has developed a post-purchase pipeline to correct movement and reconstruct image sizes of the entire fetal body.
The lead researcher, Professor Mary Rutherford, from the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences, said ultrasound remains the gold standard for fetal screening and certainly complements these advanced MRI techniques for evaluating fetal anatomy.
“Until now, ultrasound has been the method of choice to diagnose these anomalies. However, the ability of ultrasound to explain the most detailed anatomy is sometimes limited. MRI scanning allows to define more malformations. more detailed information that can support clinicians in their planning of parental care and counseling “.
MRI is commonly used in the classification of fetal brain abnormalities. Although not widely accepted in the use of fetal body anomalies, advances have demonstrated a place in a prenatal study of a number of conditions including fetal examination with spina bifida: imaging of the fetal brain along with spinal is an important feature in assessing which patients may benefit from fetal surgery.
For fetal cervical masses, MRI provides a clear advantage over conventional ultrasound for assessing tumor enlargement and providing a 3D image of the tumor’s attachment to the airway.
MRI may also be preferable to ultrasound to differentiate between normal and abnormal lung tissue, and in other studies such as diaphragmatic hernia – especially during late movement, when do so with challenging ultrasound.
New methods of imaging the fetal body with MRI allow both corrective movement of the fetal images and reconstructed volume of body organs and defects. Researchers say this improves vision and thus detects and marks dyslexia.
The project brought together surgeons, fetal medicine specialists, radiologists and physicists to review the use of magnetic resonance imaging to study conditions in the unborn baby; this approach is already integrated into clinical practice at Evelina London, which is part of the NHS Guy and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust. Videos and images are also available to view.
Ongoing work is aimed at a fully automated process suitable for clinical translation and wider dissemination into clinical practice.
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