Kelly Payette^1,2, Julia Geiger³, Michael Zellner³, Christian Kellenberger³, Ruth Tuura¹, Raimund Kottke³, and Andras Jakab^1,2
1Center for MR Research, University Children's Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, ²Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, ³Diagnostic Imaging and Intervention, University Children's Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Reliable measurements of the fetal lung volume are important for the prenatal assessment of various pathologies impacting fetal lung development. Here we compare the inter-rater reliability of fetal lung volume measurements segmented from native ssFSE scans to those from high-resolution fetal body reconstructions to determine if the high-resolution reconstructions provide a clinical benefit. We find that there is increased reliability in the volumes segmented from the high-resolution reconstructions, suggesting that high resolution reconstruction of the fetal lungs may enable more precise assessments of fetal lung volume.

Samal Munidasa^1,2, Brandon Zanette¹, Marcus Couch^1,2,3, Robert Grimm⁴, Ravi Seethamraju⁵, Marie-Pier Dumas⁶, Wallace Wee⁶, Jacky Au⁶, Sharon Braganza¹, Daniel Li¹, Felix Ratjen^1,6, and Giles Santyr^1,2
1Translational Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada, ²Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, ³Siemens Healthcare Limited, Montreal, QC, Canada, ⁴MR Application Predevelopment, Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany, ⁵MR Collaborations North East, Siemens Healthineers, North East, NY, United States, ⁶Division of Respiratory Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada

Free-breathing lung MRI has been shown to be a responsive measure to CF pulmonary exacerbations treatments but have not been used to track stable disease progression longitudinally. In this study we determined the intra- and inter-scan reproducibility of free-breathing lung MRI in healthy and stable pediatric CF across 2 visits and compared to hyperpolarized Xenon MRI (Xe-MRI). Xe-MRI and free-breathing lung show a high intra-scan reproducibility in stable CF subjects, but free-breathing lung MRI showed a low inter-scan reproducibility. However, free-breathing lung MRI significantly correlated with Xe-MRI suggesting that it may be an alternative to expensive, and less wide-spread Xe-MRI.

Jonathan P Dyke¹, Andreas Voskrebenzev^2,3, Lauren P Blatt⁴, Jens Vogel-Claussen², Robert Grimm⁵, Jeffrey P Perlman⁴, and Arzu Kovanlikaya^1
1Radiology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, United States, ²Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, ³Biomedical Research in Endstage and Obstructive Lung Disease Hannover (BREATH), German Center for Lung Research (DZL), Hannover, Germany, ⁴Pediatrics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, United States, ⁵Siemens Healthineers, Erlangen, Germany

The purpose of this study was to evaluate quantitative measures of lung function in premature newborns using (PREFUL) MRI on a 1.5 Tesla scanner located within the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). MRI can non-invasively assess ventilation and perfusion defects in the infant lung without sedation, ionizing radiation or contrast administration. We performed (PREFUL) MRI in 6 neonates [5 preterm/1 term] without respiratory distress to assess lung function in this normal population. Continuation of this work may allow clinicians to quantitatively assess response to treatment in this vulnerable population with respiratory distress.  

Jakob Spogis¹, Christoph Katemann², Shuo Zhang², Ilias Tsiflikas¹, Michael Esser¹, and Jürgen Schäfer^1
1Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany, ²Philips GmbH Market DACH, Hamburg, Germany

High-quality magnetic resonance urography (MRU) is clinically valuable to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the renal function and urinary tract in children without ionizing radiation. However, respiration-related patient motion remains a major challenge that impairs diagnostic image quality and hampers an accurate quantitative analysis. In this study, we adopt a novel high temporospatial resolution dynamic-contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI technique based on 3D radial stack-of-stars gradient-echo sequence acquisition in combination with elliptical variable density k-space scheme for morphological and quantitative MRU and demonstrate its motion robustness in small children in free breathing without sedation.

Ali B Syed¹, Suzanna Ackroyd¹, Daniel Duex¹, Victoria Young¹, Shreyas Vasanawala¹, Pejman Ghanouni¹, and Avnesh Thakor^1
1Radiology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, United States

Performance of MRgFUS in pediatric patients has not been well characterized. Retrospective review of 21 MRgFUS treatments in 9 patients below the age of 18 shows significant reduction in viable tumor volume in a variety of indications including desmoid tumors, vascular malformations, and osteoid osteoma. MRgFUS is an effective ablative therapy in children that warrants further investigation.

Kirsten Mary Lynch¹, Ryan P Cabeen¹, and Arthur W Toga^1
1USC Mark and Mary Stevens Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Neocortical maturation is a dynamic process that proceeds in a hierarchical manner; however, the spatiotemporal organization of cortical microstructure with diffusion MRI has yet to be fully defined. This study characterized cortical microstructural maturation using fwe-DTI and NODDI in a cohort of 637 children and adolescents between 8 and 21 years of age. We found heterogeneous developmental patterns broadly demarcated into frontal, temporal and occipitoparietal domains where NODDI metrics increased and fwe-DTI metrics decreased with age. Our findings corroborate previous histological and neuroimaging studies that show spatially-varying patterns of cortical maturation that may reflect unique developmental processes of cytoarchitectonically-determined regions.