Nara S Higano^1,2, Alister J Bates^1,2,3,4, Erik B Hysinger^2,4, Robert J Fleck^3,5,6, Andrew D Hahn⁷, Sean B Fain^7,8, Paul S Kingma^4,9, and Jason C Woods^2,5,6
1Center for Pulmonary Imaging, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, CINCINNATI, OH, United States, ²Pulmonary Medicine, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, CINCINNATI, OH, United States, ³Upper Airway Center, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, CINCINNATI, OH, United States, ⁴Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, CINCINNATI, OH, United States, ⁵Radiology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, CINCINNATI, OH, United States, ⁶Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, United States, ⁷Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, United States, ⁸Radiology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI, United States, ⁹Neonatology and Pulmonary Biology, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, CINCINNATI, OH, United States

Central airway abnormalities in neonates, e.g. dynamic collapse and stenosis, are serious complications often associated with preterm birth and congenital abnormalities, but have not been extensively studied. These conditions are most often assessed through clinical bronchoscopy, which can be unreliable and poses increased risks to patients. Here, we demonstrate novel visualization of static and dynamic neonatal airway abnormalities on virtual bronchoscopy from high-resolution, retrospectively respiratory-gated ultrashort echo-time MRI, which exhibits good agreement with clinical bronchoscopy. This virtual technique allows for assessment of neonatal airway abnormalities that is readily interpretable to clinicians familiar with clinical bronchoscopy.

Aaryani Tipirneni-Sajja^1,2, Ralf Berthold Loeffler^2,3, Jane Hankins⁴, and Claudia Maria Hillenbrand^2,3
1Biomedical Engineering, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, United States, ²Diagnostic Imaging, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States, ³Research Imaging NSW, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, ⁴Hematology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States

Hepatic iron content (HIC) assessment by R2*-MRI can be confounded by co-existing fibrosis. Instead, quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) techniques could be used to assess iron content without being affected by fibrosis. In this study, we demonstrated that the field maps generated from a multi-spectral auto regressive moving average (ARMA) model can be used in conjunction with QSM techniques to measure magnetic susceptibility, as a predictor for HIC.

Neele S Dellschaft^1,2, Christabella Ng³, Caroline Hoad^1,2, Luca Marciani^2,4, Robin Spiller^2,4, Penny Gowland^1,2, Alan Smyth^2,3, and Giles Major^2,4
1Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, ²Nottingham NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, ³Division of Child Health, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, ⁴Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disease leading to sticky mucus. We used MRI to characterise the effect of CF on gastrointestinal function, comparing people with CF to matched healthy controls. People with CF had slower orocaecal transit times. No change in gastric emptying rate was apparent but more free water was present in their small bowel with reduced small bowel motility and a reduced gastro-ileal reflex. Some images suggested increased bacterial load in the small bowel. CF colons were larger. These findings are consistent with sticky chyme impeding ileal emptying into the colon, causing obstruction to flow, and constipation.

Sevgi Gokce Kafali^1,2, Shu-Fu Shih^1,2, Xinzhou Li^1,2, Tess Armstrong¹, Karrie V. Ly³, Shahnaz Ghahremani¹, Kara L. Calkins³, and Holden H. Wu^1,2
1Radiological Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ²Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ³Pediatrics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States

The volume and fat content of subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue (SAT and VAT) have strong associations with metabolic diseases in overweight children. Currently, the gold standard to measure the SAT/VAT content is manual annotation, which is time-consuming. Although several studies showed promising results using machine and deep learning to segment SAT and VAT in adults, there is a lack of research on deep learning-based SAT and VAT segmentation in children. Here, we investigated the performance of 3 deep learning network architectures to segment SAT and VAT in children.

Jonathan P Dyke¹, Kevin Oh¹, Amanda Garfinkel², Alan M Groves³, and Arzu Kovanlikaya^1
1Radiology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, United States, ²Pediatrics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, United States, ³Pediatrics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States

Whole body fat fraction was previously published by our group in term and preterm infants using Dixon CSI MRI.  Advanced semi-automated regional fat quantification was performed yielding: subcutaneous adipose tissue(SAT), visceral adipose tissue(VAT), brown adipose tissue (BAT) volumes and hepatic fat fraction (HFF).  Whole body VAT volume (cc) was increased in preterm infants (3.4%±1.5%) compared to term (2.4%±0.9%) (p=0.079) when normalized to total body volume (cc).  HFF and BAT did not differ between term and preterm infants (p>0.25). CSI MRI allows quantification of regional fat depots in preterm infants which may potentially help optimize nutritional management and monitor growth.

Bart Bolsterlee^1,2, Arkiev D'Souza^1,3, and Robert D Herbert^1,3
1Neuroscience Research Australia, Randwick, Australia, ²Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Randwick, Australia, ³School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Randwick, Australia

We used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to study macroscopic and microscopic features of skeletal muscles during childhood development (5-17 years). From muscle volume and fibre length measurements, we determined the summed cross-sectional area of all fibres. From measurements of diffusion properties and simulations of restricted diffusion in skeletal muscle, we estimated mean cross-sectional areas of individual fibres. Our findings suggest that human muscles grow both by adding fibres and by increasing fibre cross-sectional areas. DTI-based measurements of skeletal muscle micro- and macrostructure could have important applications in understanding both normal and disordered muscle growth.

Yupeng Zhu¹, Di Hu¹, Yanqiu Lv¹, Yang Wen¹, Huiying Kang¹, Xiaomin Duan¹, Jiazheng Wang², Queenie Chan², and Yun Peng^1
1Department of Radiology, Beijing Children’s Hospital, Capital Medical University, National Center for Children's Health, Beijing, China, ²Philips Healthcare, Beijing, China

The use of three dimensional (3D) volumetric acquisition in clinical settings has been limited due to long scan time. However, 3D volumetric acquisition could provide higher spatial resolution and decrease partial volume effects. The introduction of compressed sensing in combination of the parallel imaging technique SENSE allows shortening of scan time and provide comparable overall image quality when compared with standard sequences. The purpose of the study is to determine the feasibility of 3D PDWI accelerated with compressed SENSE(CS) for evaluating the pediatric joint image quality and compared with 2D PDWI.

Guenther Schneider¹, Tobias Woerner¹, and Arno Buecker^1
1Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Saarland University Medical Center, Homburg, Germany

Diagnosis and staging in pediatric malignancies today involves different imaging procedures, from conventional x-ray over ultrasound to MR-, CT- and PET-imaging. We evaluated as if MRI can be used as a comprehensive one-stop shop for diagnosis, staging and biopsy in pediatric malignancies. As a result, when comparing the different imaging modalities, differences between MRI and CT were seen regarding the higher number of small lung lesions detected (<3mm) on CT. Comparable results were seen for abdominal tumors, Hodgkin- and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. In Ewing sarcoma MRI showed advantages compared with PET imaging regarding detection of skip lesions and bone marrow metastases.