5 ms·

+1 for the quality and safety of MRI > they'd quickly replace ultrasound during pregnancy Since scan time goes up with detail, and babies are really squirmy,

+1 for the quality and safety of MRI > they'd quickly replace ultrasound during pregnancy Since scan time goes up with detail, and babies are really squirmy, it would be interesting to see how a quick-scan (low resolution) MRI compares with ultrasound quality. But ultrasound destroys MRI in terms of portability, availability, and cost: just wheel in the cart, apply some goo, and there's the baby. Perhaps more serious situations should use MRI more often instead of diagnostic ultrasound.

timClicks 10y ago
I expect that portability is actually a reason why often even visual ultrasound isn't used. Doppler scanning is often all that's needed to monitor heart rhythms
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
timClicks 10y ago
Squirmy babies shouldn't be too much of an issue. They do cardiac MRI all the time and hearts are hopefully beating during those ;)
- roywiggins 10y ago
  Those are much easier because heartbeats are regular, breathing is regular, and you can image a bunch of breaths and heartbeats and synthesize a nice clean movie. Motion in general is harder.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Better still, stop the breathing. Breath hold sequences or turning off the anaesthetic machine - both work better than free breathing.
  - timClicks 10y ago
    Ah that makes a lot of sense. I guess it's pretty hard to schedule (f)MRI appointments around a fetus's sleep.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Random motion is far harder to control for. Irregular heart beats cause a lot of trouble, as do moving babies. So imagine foetal cardiac MRI. There are new methods using some pretty mind boggling maths (at least it is tonne) that deal with movement very well. But as with all clever MRI stuff, you can have nice, or you can have quick.