The incidence of acute pancreatitis is increasing in children. Imaging plays an important role in the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis because imaging findings can be used to establish the cause of acute pancreatitis, evaluate for complications of acute pancreatitis, and possibly predict the course of the disease.

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Our study demonstrated that I-123 pretherapy scans provide valuable information with regard to unsuspected lymph nodes or distant metastases, indicating the requirement for a significantly higher I-131 dose, and unexpected large thyroid remnants, suggesting the need for two-step ablation. We should take advantage of stimulated pretherapy scans and adjust the treatment dosing accordingly.

Case seriesPatients: Female, 11 • Male, 15Final Diagnosis: Spontaneous gastric perforationSymptoms: Abdominal pain • distention • vomiting • leukocytosisMedication: —Clinical Procedure: Both patients had surgerySpecialty: GastroenterologyObjective:Rare etiologyBackground:Spontaneous gastric perforation is a rare clinical disorder. The majority of the available data have been reported in the neonatal age group. There are a few cases of spontaneous gastric perforation in preschool children. To our knowledge, there is no published information on spontaneous gastric perforation in older children and adolescents.Case Report:We describe the presentation and clinical course of two adolescent children who presented with spontaneous gastric perforation. Both children presented with acute onset abdominal pain, which progressively worsened. In both cases, the patient were taken urgently to the operating room after imaging studies had shown pneumoperitoneum. In both cases, surgery revealed gastric perforation with no obvious etiology, specifically no ulcer, inflammation, or other pathology.Conclusions:These two cases highlight the importance of including spontaneous gastric perforation, not just the typical duodenal/gastric ulcer, in the differential of a patient with severe abdominal pain and distension, who has imaging showing pneumoperitoneum.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: MRI with sedation is commonly used to detect intracranial traumatic pathology in the pediatric population. Our purpose is to compare nonsedated ultrafast MRI (ufMRI), non-contrast head CT (nHCT), and standard MRI (stMRI) for detection of intracranial trauma in patients with potential abusive head trauma (AHT). MATERIALS AND METHODS:A prospective study was performed in 24 pediatric patients who were evaluated for potential AHT. All patients received nHCT, ufMRI brain without sedation, and stMRI with general anesthesia or papoose, sequentially. Two pediatric neuroradiologists independently reviewed each modality blinded to other modalities for intracranial trauma. Inter-reader agreement was performed, and consensus interpretation for stMRI as the gold standard. Diagnostic accuracy was calculated for ufMRI, nHCT, and combined ufMRI with nHCT. RESULTS:Inter-reader agreement was moderate for ufMRI (k=0.42), substantial for nHCT (k=0.63), and nearly perfect for stMRI (k=0.86). 42% of patients had discrepancies between ufMRI and stMRI which included detection of subarachnoid hemorrhage, and subdural hemorrhage. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were obtained for any traumatic pathology for each exam: UfMRI (50%, 100%, 100%, 31%), nHCT (25%, 100%, 100%, 21%) and combination of ufMRI with nHCT (60%, 100%, 100%, 33%). UfMRI was more sensitive than nHCT for detection of intraparenchymal hemorrhage (p=0.03), and the combination of ufMRI with nHCT was more sensitive than nHCT alone for intracranial trauma (p=0.02). CONCLUSION:In AHT, ufMRI, even combined with nHCT, demonstrated low sensitivity compared to stMRI for intracranial traumatic pathology which may limit its utility in this patient population.Abbreviations: AHT: abusive head trauma; GRE: gradient recalled echo; nHCT: non contrast head CT