What if doctors could consult a digital library of pediatric MRI scans to determine if an abnormal structure in a patient's brain was cause for concern? That's the goal of a group of Johns Hopkins researchers who are creating a Google-like search system to use in diagnosing and treating children's brain disorders.
While the project is still in the early stages, and access is limited to physicians and patients within the Johns Hopkins medical system, developers hope to extend the database or replicate it elsewhere in coming years. A university release offers more details on the project:
[Researchers] have been working for more than four years to establish a clinical database of more than 5,000 whole-brain MRI scans of children treated at Johns Hopkins. The patients' names and other identifying information were withheld, but details related to their medical conditions were included. The computer software indexed anatomical information involving up to 1,000 structural measurements in 250 regions of the brain. These images were also sorted into 22 brain disease categories, including chromosomal abnormalities, congenital malformations, vascular diseases, infections, epilepsy, and psychiatric disorders.
Database developers list several ways the system can enhance diagnosis and treatment of pediatric brain disorders, including facilitating identification and correct classification of pediatric brain disorders, providing a more objective image analysis than traditional methods, identifying unclassified diseases or new diseases and being able to treat patients earlier potentially preventing irreversible injury to the brain.
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