Ultrasound imaging of lung disease and its relationship to histopathology: An experimentally validated simulation approach.

Lung ultrasound (LUS) is a widely used technique in clinical lung assessment, yet the relationship between LUS images and the underlying disease remains poorly understood due in part to the complexity of the wave propagation physics in complex tissue/air structures. Establishing a clear link between visual patterns in ultrasound images and underlying lung anatomy could improve the diagnostic accuracy and clinical deployment of LUS. Reverberation that occurs at the lung interface is complex, resulting in images that require interpretation of the artifacts deep in the lungs.

Diagnostic ultrasound imaging of the lung: A simulation approach based on propagation and reverberation in the human body.

Although ultrasound cannot penetrate a tissue/air interface, it images the lung with high diagnostic accuracy. Lung ultrasound imaging relies on the interpretation of "artifacts," which arise from the complex reverberation physics occurring at the lung surface but appear deep inside the lung. This physics is more complex and less understood than conventional B-mode imaging in which the signal directly reflected by the target is used to generate an image.

Noninvasive fetal electrocardiography for the detection of fetal arrhythmias.

Objective: To assess whether noninvasive fetal electrocardiography (NI-FECG) enables the diagnosis of fetal arrhythmias.

Methods: A total of 500 echocardiography and NI-FECG recordings were collected from pregnant women during a routine medical visit in this multicenter study. All the cases with fetal arrhythmias (n = 12) and a matching number of control (n = 14) were used.

The use of non-invasive fetal electrocardiography in diagnosing second-degree fetal atrioventricular block.

Background: Complete atrioventricular block in fetuses is known to be mostly associated with autoimmune disease and can be irreversible if no steroids treatment is provided. Conventional methods used in clinical practice for diagnosing fetal arrhythmia are limited since they do not reflect the primary electrophysiological conduction processes that take place in the myocardium. The non-invasive fetal electrocardiogram has the potential to better support fetal arrhythmias diagnosis through the continuous analysis of the beat to beat variation of the fetal heart rate and morphological analysis of the PQRST complex.

Successful Surgical Excision of a Large Cardiac Fibroma in an Asymptomatic Child.

Cardiac fibroma is a rare disease, and the management of asymptomatic patients is controversial. We report a case of successful surgical excision of a large cardiac fibroma in an asymptomatic child. Surgery should be considered for such a patient, as sudden cardiac death may occur in the absence of premonitory symptoms.

Prenatal diagnosis of left pulmonary artery-to-pulmonary vein fistula and its successful surgical repair in a neonate.

Pulmonary arteriovenous fistula is a rare disease. To the best of our knowledge, prenatal diagnosis of a fistula between the left pulmonary artery and the left pulmonary vein has not been described in the medical literature. We report a case of the prenatal diagnosis of a left pulmonary artery-to-pulmonary vein fistula, followed by successful neonatal surgical repair.