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MRI scans live birth
Published: 7 Dec 10 14:04 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20101207-31649.html
Berlin’s Charité Hospital has achieved a world-first by creating MRI images of a baby being born in order to provide extraordinary insights into the birthing process.
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The MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner has already taken unique images of the body of a mother and the movement of her baby through the birth canal to the point where its head emerges into the world. The birth that took place in the scanner went smoothly and both mother and baby were in good health, a hospital spokeswoman said.
The birth was the culmination of a two-year project by the research team. MRI uses powerful magnets to magnetise some atoms in the body which makes them detectable to radio waves. Importantly, it can make cross-section images of a subject, showing intricate detail of soft tissue and bones in the body.
The team built a special “open MRI” scanner, a new type of machine whose open structure had the necessary space for the mother to give birth.
The new machine will enable the researchers to study in greater detail how the baby moves through the mother’s pelvis and down the birth canal – issues that have long been studied and debated. The hospital’s Institute for Radiology and Obstetrics Clinic will work closely together on the project.
Among other benefits, it should help researchers to understand why about 15 percent of pregnant women need a Caesarian section because the baby does not progress properly into the birth canal.
The Local/dw
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Your comments about this article:
Wonder how long this little baby will live before dying of some radiation disease.
Was this Really necessary?
No.
Second - considering the hundreds of women and tens of thousands of infants that die during childbirth each year, I would definitely consider understanding this process to be really necessary.
So, I'm insensitive.
;-)
There IS radio wave "radiation" involved in an MRI.
While there may be no X-Ray, Beta, or Gamma particle radiation during an MRI, everything from sound waves going up through visible light and on up to the highest radio waves that man can detect is considered part of the 'electromagnetic' scale of "radiation". Before one can conclude, that any amount of "radiation" is harmful you must first know the type of "radiation" involved, the power level / intensity, distance from the source, and the time of exposure.
Any given amount of "radiation exposure" has a biological threshold, which if NOT crossed does not cause physical harm. This "harm" can be viewed in real time through a microscope in a petri dish. Thus the manufacturer knows what levels of operation of their imaging machines are "safe". Some types of imaging equipment do cross that line, even in it's normal operation, but the trade off is that that the risk of that particular "harm" is considered minuscule, compared to the knowledge gained about the disease being detected.
Now, whether or not any given piece of equipment is calibrated correctly is another matter all-together. However, getting an overdose of radio waves in an MRI is quite a bit more difficult to do, as opposed to a CT just due to the nature of the equipment and the type of "radiation" involved. It is possible, but highly improbable.
Do these images have any scientific merit, or were they just taken "because they could"? Were some doctors getting seriously bored and thought this would be a cool thing to do?
I simply do not see the point.
If you had been in labor for 18 hours and then had a c-section you might understand the point. I was completely dilated and still could not deliver "normally" If something like this could have helped the Dr. understand more of what was going on and spared me that extra time in labor I would have embraced it gladly!
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22Abujamea%20AH%22[Author]
I'm just saying.
Also why you never hear someone (hehe, i know) say that "the sound radiated" rather its propagated.
I think this is a great feat of science, hopefully it'll help reduce the rates of mother and child mortality in child birth.
Miracles!
What we thought that we knew about the radiation of living humans comes from irradiation of rats and from ESTIMATES of radiation exposure to the survivors of HIroshima and Nagasaki.
X-rays received during pregnancy has been the subject of a lot of medical debate recently. Most of the debate concerns at what level of exposure should a therapeutic abortion be recommended because of fetal damage. If you care to read it, go to this web site and download the pdf file.
http://www.ncrponline.org/Annual_Mtgs/Brent%20-%20lec%204-3-06_comp.pdf
Yes, the image is upside down. It is a common mistake that's made on the daytime television "soap opera" type shows and some medical dramas. They are too cheap to hire a medical consultant so they make themselves look foolish. But hey! they had a 50-50 chance to get it right. At least the long axis is horizontal, so they knew enough not to lay the MRI machine on its side...HA!
The 'research' regarding the danger of MRI and pregnancy has NOT been established. The research sited in the responses above was conducted in Saudi Arabia and even though they DID NOT establish a statistical danger, they decided to make the recommendation regarding MRI as conservative as possible. That is Saudi Arabia. Conservative. Even the science is tainted. If you don't believe me that they are conservative go there and try to establish a Christian Church.
No one seems to have a problem with multiple ultrasound examinations during pregnancy. That is because the energy delivered to the fetus is low and it is in the form of heat. That is, not enough heat energy to raise the temperature even 1 degree! Also, there are no Urban Legends to scare pregnant mothers away from ultrasound examinations.
The energy delivered during MRI to living cells from Electromagnetic Radiation in the range of radio waves is in the form of a temperature rise also...that is, heat. Magnetic fields deliver energy in much the same way. A 1.5 Tesla magnet resonates to E-M radiation (FM radio waves) at about 66 megahertz. That is near to the carrier frequency assigned to Channel 3 in the VHF rage in the U.S. MRI facilities are shielded with copper cladding but to ground. Radio waves or magnetic fields create electrical impulses in the copper shielding that goes to ground harmlessly.
We needn't go into the physics of medical imaging to realize that these imaging systems are safe unless you bring a steel oxygen tank into the room. The tank will shoot into the gantry from the extreme magnetic attraction striking the patient. People have been killed in this manner.
Actually, I knew that, and I am more than embarrassed to have to be corrected on that point.
Though, in my defense, I guess I was thinking at the time, that in audio speakers, and ultrasound imaging devices the 'waves' are created using electricity; but as you said, the electrically stimulated transducer does indeed create a physical wave. To go way beyond the immediate physical realities though, one COULD say, that every physical object, and even a wave within that object owes its existence to the interactions of the resonate electromagnetic frequencies of the atoms which make up that object. Thus, even a 'sound wave' has its roots in electromagnetism.
I know that was a long-shot, but did I save face?
Today its done all over the world. Scanning of this kind will go many steps forward in the field of finding the moves of babies while inside and surely its a way forward to find many more realities of life. I must congratulate all those who paid their share in this great achievement.
Actually, don't feel too badly about you classification of sound as E-M. It is a common mistake. Both are governed by wave theory. Sound, however is a longitudinal wave where E-M is a transverse wave field effect.
To correct the mistake that I made in my post I should have said not that a 1.5 Tesla Magnet resonates with a 66Mhz but rather that the element hydrogen resonates in a 1.5 T magnetic field to a 66 Mhz signal.
In MRI resonating hydrogen is used to make the image, and hydrogen makes up around 50% of the human body, since we are 70% water roughly and water is 2/3 hydrogen atoms.
You see, the magnetic field orientates the hydrogen spin in one direction. Then, the 66Mhz radio signal changes the spin when it is turned on. Then, when it is turned off the atoms (molecules) go back to their original spin under the magnetic influence.
In the process of re-orientation the atoms release energy in the form a radio signal that in measured for strength thus providing information about hydrogen content. The signals are then processed into images using mathematical reconstructions based on a mathematical process of describing a 3-dimensional object with an infinite set of projections first described by the Austrian mathematician Radon in 1817. However, we were not able to actually do it until we had computers capable of doing the re-iterative reconstructions in a reasonable period of time.
The science in medical imaging is nothing short of amazing.
And yes, we must have the science before we can have a practical application. If mankind had to wait for a practical application before we did the science II shudder to think where we would be today.