Dear Pediatric Imaging Insider,
I just returned from the RSNA annual meeting in Chicago, where I attended some excellent scientific sessions on pediatric imaging. RSNA sessions this year focused on radiation dose reduction and neuroimaging, as well as fetal, abdominal, chest and cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and interventional imaging. Whew! So many excellent posters to review, both paper and electronic, so little time!
It was exciting to learn that two major children's hospitals, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, reported that pediatricians, surgeons, and emergency department physicians are ordering fewer CT scans, opting instead for MRI and ultrasound procedures. Inquisitive administrators who discovered unexplained disparities between estimated and actual procedure volumes decided to investigate. Click here to find out what they discovered in this issue's Insider Exclusive.
Speaking of discovery -- an RSNA press conference that attracted the attention of national TV and print journalists reported the discovery of a newly identified psychiatric disorder. Dubbed the "self-embedding" disorder, radiologists at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, OH, were the first to identify that predominantly teenage girls with suicidal tendencies insert staples, needles, pencil lead, and even unfolded paper clips into their bodies.
To date, this disorder has been identified in patients in Japan and the U.S. Radiologists throughout the world are being asked to watch for the disorder in patients and submit all findings to a national registry that has just been established. Read more about this sad discovery.
Did you know that autistic children react to sound a fraction of a second slower than normal children? Magnetoencephalography was used to identify this finding, which may be one reason for the communication and language impairments of autistic children. Click here to read contributing writer Charlene Laino's report from the RSNA meeting.
While poster trawling, I saw a crowd gathered around a poster from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and decided to investigate. It described the clinical experiences of using a 3-telsa MRI system in lieu of a 1.5-tesla scanner. This not only attracted our attention, but also that of the editors from RadioGraphics, who have recommended the poster for publication next year.
And that's just the start of our RSNA-related coverage. If there are sessions you would particularly like to read about in your Pediatric Imaging Digital Community, please recommend them.
