Ricerc@Sapienza

Diffusion neuro-MRI has benefited significantly from sophisticated pre-processing procedures aimed at improving image quality and diagnostic. In this work, diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) was used with artifact correction and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) was quantified to investigate fetal brain development. The DWI protocol was designed in order to limit the acquisition time and to estimate ADC without perfusion bias. The ADC in normal fetal brains was compared to cases with isolated ventriculomegaly (VM), a common fetal disease whose DWI studies are still scarce.

OBJECTIVES:
To report the rate of additional anomalies detected exclusively on prenatal MRI in fetuses affected by isolated mild or moderate ventriculomegaly (VM) according to the type of ultrasound protocol adopted (dedicated neurosonography vs standard assessment of fetal brain) and to explore whether the diagnostic performance of fetal MRI in detecting such anomalies is affected by gestational age at scan and laterality of ventricular dilatation.

Objectives: To assess the role of fetal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in detecting associated anomalies in fetuses presenting with mild or moderate isolated ventriculomegaly (VM) undergoing multiplanar ultrasound evaluation of the fetal brain.