Dear Pediatric Imaging Insider,
In my opinion, children deserve special care, especially if burdened with a congenital defect or a debilitating illness at a very young age. Neonatologists and other pediatric specialists can get an early start on clinical intervention with fetal imaging techniques that can help make important diagnoses before and immediately after birth.
One such technique, a new method of segmenting the fetal heart using echocardiography to diagnose fetal congenital heart defects, is the topic of this edition's Insider Exclusive. The automated process described by researchers from University College London reduces to 15 minutes a task that manually takes several hours to perform. Click here to read about this innovation.
The use of fetal ultrasound has been steadily increasing throughout the world, and so has the number of autism diagnoses. Is there a connection? Researchers from Kaiser Permanente of Northern California investigated, and senior editor Erik L. Ridley reports on the findings of this timely clinical study.
Special care for children needing diagnostic imaging exams means using low radiation doses whenever possible. To that end, Seattle Children's Hospital has developed low-dose PET/CT protocols that you may want to adopt. Read about these by clicking here.
And finally, it's our pleasure to bring you an article about how an Ohio cancer support center is using wooden models of medical imaging scanners to help children deal with cancer. Also be sure to scroll down for the rest of the news in your Pediatric Imaging Digital Community.
