MR Insights

A. MRI is definitely the mainstay of our treatment in neonatal brain injury. We use the MRI to help us not only make decisions on the spot about treatment that may be needed for patients, but also, and probably most importantly, to help us prognosticate about what the future looks like for these very fragile, tiny patients. So, it’s extraordinarily important.

A. If there’s no MRI system available, the biggest and most useful alternative would be ultrasound. However, the limitations of ultrasound are that you only have a tiny window to view the brain. For example, through the fontanel, or the soft spot on the baby’s head. So, you’re getting limited views of the underlying brain tissue. Whereas with MRI, you’re able to see the deep structures of the brain and see in detail, areas that may be injured or where bleeding might be occurring.

A. Yes, for sure. Better clarity and more detail.

A. It’s moving the patient, for sure. A lot of these patients are critically ill. They’re on ventilators. They’ve got IV fluids running. Some of them are very tiny. And so having to move those critically-ill patients out of their ICU environment to another part of the hospital is a difficult process. It takes a long time. It takes a lot of manpower, and it needs to be done well to keep the patient safe throughout the journey.

A. A point-of-care neonatal MRI system provides us with the opportunity to do serial MR imaging in a very simplified manner, in that we don’t have to move the patient off the unit and outside of the care environment. The MRI system is right in the neonatal intensive care unit.

There are system now available, designed specifically for use within the NICU, meeting the unique needs of neonatal patients.  Whereas, the other traditional MRIs that we’re used to going to, are very large machines that are often housed in basements of hospitals, because that’s the only place you can put something that weighs that much.

And so we’re able to do imaging at any time during the day or night, without the scheduling challenges of using traditional MR systems in Radiology.  With the point-of-care MRI system specific to the NICU patient, the travel time to and from the unit is reduced. The safety because of that reduction in travel time and the reduction of the time outside of the intensive care unit is extremely .

A. You could image a patient every day, for example, if you wanted to follow the evolution of an injury over time. That’s something that we’ve been able to do with ultrasound – to do serial ultrasound imaging.

However, as I said before, ultrasound is limited to that tiny window of the fontanel and only seeing certain parts of the brain, whereas with MRI, we can see the entire brain, really, and even the deep structures of the brain. This level of care is only possible with an MRI system readily available within the NICU. 

A. I think one of the challenges for the traditional 3T, 1.5T, large scanners is that there’s many different sequences that need to be interpreted, and so it takes a lot more time to go through those sequences.

There’s also, again, the booking of the tests and the challenges with having multiple different patient ages and volumes coming through. The time for the neuroradiologists to interpret a scan done on a dedicated neonatal MRI system is much less than the time it takes to review and even undertake a scan on traditional MRI scanners.

In terms of the technologists, I think the platform of a neonatal point-of-care MRI system, from what I’ve seen, is very user friendly. The ability for the technologist to be right in the room with the patient while the scan is taking place is a huge advantage.

And certainly that’s also an advantage for nursing and the team who are bringing the patient to the scanner. You can be right in the room with the patient the whole time. The proximity to the patient is much closer.

And the ability to be able to act if something goes wrong, the time is reduced for that. And you don’t have to worry about the magnetic field, which is another big disadvantage with the large scanners.

A. With the point-of-care MRI unit for neonatal care, all of the key sequences are available. So T1, T2, the DWI sequences – we can look on the coronal plane, the axial plane and the sagittal plane. So, all three planes are available.

There is also a SWI sequence that has the ability to look for blood products that may be present. All of the key imaging sequences necessary to evaluate neonatal neurological status are available with a point-of-care system.

Really, when we think about the patients that we would traditionally scan in the NICU, those are the mainstay sequences that we would use. So, 90% of children or babies who require an MRI would be well served with the point-of-care MRI systems now available.

And certainly if we did see anything that was more unusual, we could still always go to a larger scanner that has more detailed pictures and different sequences with smaller cuts and the ability to look for metabolites in the brain with spectroscopy and those kind of things. But 90% of what we would traditionally need with the sequences are available in new systems.

A. Well, certainly again, the reason to utilize a point-of-care MRI system without leaving the NICU, , as the first line test, is because of the ability to scan quickly, the ease of use, and the ability to be able to go there more than once on sequential days if needed. Plus, the ability to accomplish all that without ever transporting the infant.

And you don’t have to wait in line, basically, for a time to take the patient to MRI. Safety is really the main issue. It’s the safety and the time outside of the unit for these tiny fragile babies that is the big impact.

And certainly if we did see anything that was more unusual, we could still always go to a larger scanner that has more detailed pictures and different sequences with smaller cuts and the ability to look for metabolites in the brain with spectroscopy and those kind of things. But 90% of what we would traditionally need with the sequences are available in new systems.

A.  As I said in the beginning, MRI is really a mainstay of treatment in neonatal neurocritical care and the ability to assess brain injury, and the impact of the neonatal point-of-care MRI is really threefold.

One is that you don’t need to move the patient as far, and there’s no competition with the other patient populations. It’s specific to the needs, and schedule, of the neonate.

The second would be the advantage of being able to do imaging serially, one day after another, to follow the evolution of an injury.

And the third thing would be the safety and the fact that there’s no radiation involved. It’s not like a CT scan or an x-ray where there’s radiation involved. So MRI is definitely very advantageous for those reasons.