MIFFY- Monitoring infant brain perfusion by echography

Background information

One in ten children is born prematurely, which amounts to approximately 500,000 preterm infants in Europe each year. Thanks to improvements in fetal and neonatal care, the survival rate in preterm infants has been significantly improved. Yet, they regularly show neurodevelopmental problems, including cognitive deficits, motor disabilities and psychiatric diseases with ensuing lifelong burdens for the up-growing individuals and their families. A major cause of these neurodevelopmental problems is brain injury, linked to inadequate brain perfusion during and after delivery.

Overall aim

In this project we will develop a light-weight, low-power monitoring device that uses 3D ultrasound to assess brain perfusion every 10 minutes through the baby’s fontanel. On a workstation, nurses and doctors can monitor the resulting images and provide timely and guided treatment if required. In addition, we will explore how we can use naturally-present shear waves to measure the brain stiffness, and high-resolution B-mode for anatomical signs of brain development, bleeding, etc.

Research method

The team consists of several researchers with their own specialism: data processing, imaging systems, transducer development, and pre-clinical and clinical studies. From scratch, we will develop and test the concepts to accurately measure the condition of the neonatal brain.

Desirable outcome

We will test the system both in lab-settings and in patients, within and outside Erasmus MC to be able to show the benefit of the technique to recognize the condition of the neonatal brain.

This work is funded with project number 15293 by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Applied and Engineering Sciences (AES) section.

Collaborations within Erasmus MC:

-Sophia Children’s hospital, department of neonatology

Collaborations outside of Erasmus MC:

-Prof. Nico de Jong and dr. Martin Verweij, Medical Imaging lab, department of Imaging Physics, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology
-Dr. Jeroen Dudink, Neonatogie, University Medical Center of Utrecht

• Nico de Jong
• Hans Bosch
• Rik Vos
• Jorinde Kortenbout