Introduction: The objective of the study was to establish the predictive value of prenatal ultrasound markers for complex gastroschisis (GS) in the first 10 days of life. Material and Methods: In this retrospective cohort study over 11 years (2000-2011) of 117 GS cases, the following prenatal ultrasound signs were analyzed at the last second- and third-trimester ultrasounds: intrauterine growth restriction, intra-abdominal bowel dilatation (IABD) adjusted for gestational age, extra-abdominal bowel dilatation (EABD) ≥25 mm, stomach dilatation, stomach herniation, perturbed mesenteric circulation, absence of bowel lumen and echogenic dilated bowel loops (EDBL). Results: Among 114 live births, 16 newborns had complex GS (14.0%). Death was seen in 16 cases (13.7%): 3 intrauterine fetal deaths, 9 complex GS and 4 simple GS. Second-trimester markers had limited predictive value. Third-trimester IABD, EABD, EDBL, absence of intestinal lumen and perturbed mesenteric circulation were statistically associated with complex GS and death. IABD was able to predict complex GS with a sensitivity of 50%, a specificity of 91%, a positive predictive value of 47% and a negative predictive value of 92%. Discussion: Third-trimester IABD adjusted for gestational age appears to be the prenatal ultrasound marker most strongly associated with adverse outcome in GS.

For newborns and neonates, ultrasound (US) is the most common imaging modality used for examinations due to its accessibility and ease of use. However, precise volume measurements remain limited in 2D, while MRI in newborns is typically avoided because of immobilization issues which may require sedation. The objective of this study is to assess and validate the lateral ventricular and total brain volumes obtained with an automatic segmentation method using cerebral trans-fontanelle 3D US. Infants aged between 2 and 8.5 months old were recruited, with both MRI and 3D US acquired on the same day was used to validate ventricular and brain volume measurements in comparison to MRI. Lateral ventricles were segmented on both the US (manually and with a proposed automatic fusion-based approach) and MRI, while brain volumes were estimated with an automatic segmentation method. Volumetric 3D US measurements were then evaluated with respect to age distribution. For the comparison between MRI and 3D US, strong inter-class correlations (ICC) were found for the ventricle volumes (manual: 5.9%  ±  2.5% difference (ICC  =  0.99); automatic: 6.0%  ±  2.6% difference (ICC  =  0.98)), as well as the total brain size, with a 3.0%  ±  1.3% difference (ICC  =  0.98). There was no statistically significant difference based on t-test and f-test for the lateral ventricles volume (t-test: p  =  0.542) and (f-test: p  =  0.738) and for the total brain volume (t-test: p  =  0.412) and (f-test: p  =  0.685) between MRI and 3D US. This study demonstrates that 3D US can be used to automatically assess lateral ventricular and total brain volumes with no significant difference to the MRI acquisitions. The highest correlations were obtained for infants under 8 months when the fontanelle is open.

RICH with venous lakes on ultrasound is prone to develop bleeding, cardiac failure and ulceration. This association was only significant for cardiac failure.

A segmental sequential approach is widely used for the description of congenital heart disease abnormalities in routine reports of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging examinations. This consists of three stages as follows: (a) the anatomical description of each segment (viscero-atrial situs, the bulboventricular loop and the position of the great vessels); (b) the relationship between each segment at the atrioventricular and ventriculoarterial levels; and (c) related intra- and intersegmental abnormalities. This article describes the interpretation of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging examinations in patients with cardiac malformations using a structured plan.

Ultrasound (US) can be used to assess brain development in newborns, as MRI is challenging due to immobilization issues, and may require sedation. Dilatation of the lateral ventricles in the brain is a risk factor for poorer neurodevelopment outcomes in infants. Hence, 3D US has the ability to assess the volume of the lateral ventricles similar to clinically standard MRI, but manual segmentation is time consuming. The objective of this study is to develop an approach quantifying the ratio of lateral ventricular dilatation with respect to total brain volume using 3D US, which can assess the severity of macrocephaly. Automatic segmentation of the lateral ventricles is achieved with a multi-atlas deformable registration approach using locally linear correlation metrics for US-MRI fusion, followed by a refinement step using deformable mesh models. Total brain volume is estimated using a 3D ellipsoid modeling approach. Validation was performed on a cohort of 12 infants, ranging from 2 to 8.5 months old, where 3D US and MRI were used to compare brain volumes and segmented lateral ventricles. Automatically extracted volumes from 3D US show a high correlation and no statistically significant difference when compared to ground truth measurements. Differences in volume ratios was 6.0 ± 4.8% compared to MRI, while lateral ventricular segmentation yielded a mean Dice coefficient of 70.8 ± 3.6% and a mean absolute distance (MAD) of 0.88 ± 0.2mm, demonstrating the clinical benefit of this tool in paediatric ultrasound.