CEUS Helps Diagnose Infant Brain Injury and Predict Outcomes

The test, known as contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), safely uses commercially-available ultrasound contrast agents to enhance conventional diagnostic ultrasound scans in adults and children.

“CEUS helps characterize brain microcirculation at several microns resolution, a result that is not achievable with conventional imaging tools,” according to Dr. Misun Hwang, a pediatric radiologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Hwang described innovative uses of pediatric CEUS at the 34^th annual International Bubble Conference, a medical conference held in Chicago that focuses on the latest trends and uses of CEUS.

“These ultrasound contrast agents contain microscopic gas-filled microbubbles that flow through the body’s smallest blood vessels,” she added.

Dr. Hwang said that CEUS can provide reliable, real-time diagnostic images in a variety of clinical settings.

Ultrasound contrast agents are approved throughout much of the world for imaging specific organs in adults and children, but they are not yet approved for imaging the brain of newborn children.

“We have now been able to show that CEUS aids in improved diagnosis and prognostication of infant brain injury,” Dr. Hwang said.

ABOUT ICUS:

The International Contrast Ultrasound Society (ICUS) is an international medical society dedicated to advancing the appropriate use of contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) to improve patient care. ICUS members include physicians, scientists, and other ultrasound imaging professionals around the world. For more information about ICUS, please visit www.icus-society.org.

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