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We are pleased to announce that Professor Charles Dumoulin from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center will visit the Insigneo Institute and give a talk on 'Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center NICU MRI experience' on Monday 31 July 2023. 

Abstract:

MRI in the NICU:  The Cincinnati Children’s experience
Charles L Dumoulin, PhD
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA 45229

Premature babies in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) are among the most fragile patients treated today.  While NICU babies have many medical conditions that could be diagnosed with modern imaging techniques, in reality babies are rarely sent out of the NICU for advanced imaging exams such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).  This is because the risk of moving a premature baby typically outweighs the medical benefits of the exam. 

To overcome the challenges of imaging premature babies we created a new type of MR scanner that is small enough to be placed directly in the NICU.  This 1.5 Tesla MR scanner has a footprint of only a few square feet, and was created by converting a small-bore magnet designed for imaging adult knees into one suitable for whole-body imaging of premature babies.  Scans were performed on more than 1,700 babies before the system was retired and replaced with a 3 Tesla system.

Small format MRI scanners placed in the NICU provide an opportunity to revisit almost everything that is known about MRI.  We expect that MR’s new-found accessibility to neonates will open up new clinical horizons.  We also expect that the capabilities of the new scanner will take MRI into realms that are not possible with large-bore MR systems.  No longer will the premature baby’s small size put him/her at a disadvantage when it comes to MR, but instead it will enable MR imaging beyond that possible in an adult scanner.

Brief biography:

Charles Dumoulin, PhD
Professor of Radiology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

Charles (Chuck) Dumoulin received his BS in Chemistry from Florida State University in 1977 and his PhD degree in Analytical Chemistry in 1981. He then spent three years performing high-resolution NMR spectroscopy research at Syracuse University before moving to General Electric’s Research and Development Center in Niskayuna, NY, where he became part of the team that developed the first industrial prototype MR scanners. In the following 24 years, Chuck made major contributions to the fields of Magnetic Resonance Angiography (MRA), dynamic MRI and Interventional MRI. In 2008 he joined the Imaging Research Center at Cincinnati Children’s where he led a team of scientists and engineers in the development of a small-format MRI system for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  This work ultimately led to the creation of Eyas Medical Imaging, a startup company dedicated to bringing small-format MRI scanners to the market.  Chuck currently acts as the Chief Technology Officer of the company.