Radiology > Clinical Sections > Pediatric Radiology > Research Directions

Research Directions

The Pediatric Radiology section aims to contribute to major breakthroughs in children's health care through the investigation of new imaging technologies as well as translation of pre-clinical research results into clinical care. The Pediatric Radiology section is actively involved in research projects investigating new imaging technologies for pediatric patients, in particular new applications of magnetic resonance imaging and PET-CT. In addition, the Pediatric Radiology section is engaged in several collaborative research projects involving pediatric oncology, radiation oncology, pediatric gastroenterology and pediatric surgery.


Ongoing Clinical Pediatric Radiology Research:

Pediatric Radiology faculty members serve as expert reviewers for CT and MR Imaging studies of patients with advanced neuroblastoma from 13 Universities for the NANT consortium (New Approaches to Neuroblastoma Therapy: www.nant.org)

Pediatric Radiology faculty members serve as imaging scan reviewers for a project of UCSF pediatric surgeons about the safety and efficacy of a Magnetic Mini-Mover in correcting pectus excavatum in pediatric patients

Pediatric Radiologists and medical students evaluate the value of PET-CT for staging and restaging of children with solid tumors

Pediatric Radiologists, Oncologists, Radiation oncologists and medical students evaluate the effect of abdominal irradiation on the growth of the aorta in children with advanced neuroblastoma

Pediatric Radiologists, fellows and students evaluate the value of High Resolution MR imaging of the orbit for the evaluation of patients with retinoblastoma

Ongoing Pre-Clinical Pediatric Radiology Research:

Robert Brasch directs the Center for Pharmaceutical and Molecular Imaging, which evaluates new contrast agents and imaging techniques for an improved characterization of cancer. Current research directions are:

  1. Development of new MRI and CT contrast media.
  2. Characterize disease by changes in function and microvasculature characteristics.
  3. Development of new UCSF Optical imaging unit.
  4. Molecular imaging to characterize cancer.

Heike Daldrup-Link directs the Contrast Agent Research Group at the Center for Molecular and Functional Imaging. The Contrast Agent Research Group research group evaluates new, targeted contrast agents and new cellular imaging techniques for MR imaging and Optical Imaging. Current research directions include :

  1. Monitoring of Stem Cell Therapies with MR Imaging and Optical Imaging.
  2. Monitoring tumor therapy with natural killer cells with MR and Optical Imaging.
  3. In vivo targeting of tumors with tumor-specific contrast agents.

Recent Publications:

  1. Daldrup-Link HE, Rudelius M, Piontek G, Metz S, Bräuer R, Debus G, Corot C, Schlegel J, Link TM, Peschel C, Rummeny EJ, Oostendorp RAJ: Migration of iron oxide labeled human hematopoietic progenitor cells in a xenotransplant model: in vivo monitoring using clinical magnetic resonance imaging equipment. Radiology 234(1): 197-205, 2005
  2. Daldrup-Link HE, Meier R, Rudelius M, Piontek G, Piert M, Metz S, Settles S, Uherek C, Schlegel J, Rummeny EJ: In-vivo Tracking of genetically engineered anti-HER2/neu directed Natural Killer to HER2/neu positive Mammary Tumors with Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Eur Radiol 15(1): 4-13, 2005
  3. Simon GH, Link TM, Engelke C, Woertler K, Doebereiner F, Daldrup-Link HE, Settles M, Rummeny EJ: Detection of hepatocellular carcinoma: comparison of Gd-DTPA- and Ferumoxides-enhanced MR. Eur Radiol 2005; 15(5):895-903.
  4. Daldrup-Link HE, Rudelius M, Oostendorp RA, Jacobs VR, Simon GH, Gooding C, Rummeny EJ: Comparison of iron oxide labeling properties of hematopoietic progenitor cells from umbilical cord blood and from peripheral blood for subsequent in vivo tracking in a xenotransplant mouse model. Acad Radiol. 2005;12(4):502-10
  5. Masi JN, Newitt D, Sell CA, Daldrup-Link H, Steinbach L, Majumdar S, Link TM. Optimization of Gadodiamide Concentration for MR Arthrography at 3 T. AJR Am J Roentgenol. 2005 184(6):1754-61.
  6. Preda A, Turetschek K, Daldrup H, Floyd E, Novikov V, Shames DM, Roberts TPL, Carter WO, Brasch RC: The Choice of Region of Interest Measures in Contrast-Enhanced MRI Characterization of Experimental Breast Tumors. Invest Radiol 2005 40(6): 349-354
  7. Simon GH, von Vopelius-Feldt J, Wendland M, Schlegel J, Mei-Hsiu C, Daldrup-Link HE: Ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide enhanced MR imaging of normal bone marrow in rodents. Academic Radiology 12(9):1190-7, 2005
  8. Spilker M, Yao AA, Daldrup-Link HE, Shames D, Brasch RC, Vicini P: A mixture model approach to tumor classification based upon pharmacokinetic measures of tumor permeability. J Magn Reson Imag 13;22(4):549-558, 2005
  9. Simon GH, von Vopelius-Feldt J, Fu Y, Schlegel J, Piontek G, Wendland MF, Mei-Hsiu C, Daldrup-Link HE: Ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging of antigen-induced arthritis: a comparative study between SHU555C, Ferumoxtran-10 and Ferumoxytol. Investigative Radiology 41(1):45-51, 2006
  10. Simon GH, Daldrup-Link HE, von Vopelius-Feldt J, Wendland M, Fu Y, Schlegel J, Rummeny EJ: MRT der Arthritis mit dem neuen USPIO Resovist S: Optimierung des T1-Enhancements. (“MRI of arthritis with the USPIO SHU555C: Optimization of T1-Enhancement”) Fortschr. Röntgenstr. 178(2):200-6, 2006
  11. Metz S, Lohr S, Settles S, Beer A, Woertler M, Rummeny EJ, Daldrup-Link HE: Ferumoxtran-10 enhanced MR imaging of the bone marrow before and after conditioning therapy in patients with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. Eur Radiol. 16(3):598-607, 2006
  12. Simon GH, Bauer J, Saborowski O, Fu Y, Corot C, Wendland MF, Daldrup-Link HE: T1 and T2 relaxivity of intracellular and extracellular USPIO at 1.5T and 3T clinical MR scanning. Eur Radiol. 16(3):738-45, 2006
  13. Simon GH, von Vopelius-Feldt J, Wendland M, Fu Y, Piontek G, Schlegel J, Chen, MH, Daldrup-Link HE: MRI of arthritis: Comparison of ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide vs. Gd-DTPA. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging 23(5):720-7, 2006
  14. Simon GH, Daldrup-Link HE, Kau J, Metz S, Schlegel J, Piontek G, Saborowski O, Demos S, Duyster J, Pichler BJ: Optical imaging of experimental arthritis using allogeneic leukocytes labeled with a near-infrared fluorescent probe. Eur J Nucl Med & Mol Imaging, 33(9):998-1006; 2006
  15. Daldrup-Link HE, Simon G, Brasch RC: Imaging of Tumor Angiogenesis. Current Approaches and Future Prospects. Current Pharmaceutical Design 12(21):2661-72, 2006
  16. Daldrup-Link HE, Henning T, Link TM: MR Imaging of Therapy induced Changes of the Bone Marrow. Eur Radiol 17(3):743-61, 2007
  17. Simon G, Daldrup-Link H, Rummeny R: New Contrast Agents for MR Imaging of Arthritis. “Radiologe” 47(1):43-52, 2007 (German). Special issue “Molecular Imaging”, Editor Ralph Weissleder
  18. Henning T, Saborowski O, Golovko D, Boddington S, Bauer J, Fy Y, Meier R, Pietsch H, Sennino B, Daldrup-Link HE: Cell labeling with the positive MR contrast agent Gadofluorine M. Eur Radiol 17(5):1226-34, 2007
  19. Saborowski O, Simon G, Raatschen H, Wendland M, Fu Y, Knudsen M, Baehner R, Corot C, Chen MH, Daldrup-Link HE: MR imaging of arthritis with the new, folate-receptor targeted contrast agent P866. Contrast Media & Molecular Imaging 2(2):72-81, 2007
  20. Gillies A, Sutton E, DeWitt KD, Matthay KK, Weinberg V, Fisch BM, Chan A, Gooding C, Daldrup-Link HE, Wara WM, Farmer DL, Harrison MR, Haas-Kogan D: Long-Term outcome and toxicities of intraoperative radiotherapy for high-risk neuroblastoma. Int. J. Radiation Oncology Biol. Phys 69(3):858-64, 2007
  21. Henning T, Weber A, Bauer JS, Meier R, Carlsen JM, Sutton EJ, Prevrhal S, Ziegler S, Feussner H, Daldrup-Link HE, Rummeny EJ: Imaging Characteristics of DHOG, of a new hepatobiliary contrast agent for preclinical Micro-CT. Acad Radiol 15(3):342-9, 2008
  22. Wang J, Boddington S, Wendland M, Meier R, Corot C, Daldrup-Link HE: MR Imaging of Ovarian Tumors using Folate-Receptor targeted contrast agents. Pediatric Radiology 38(5):529-37, 2008
  23. Daldrup-Link HE, Hawkins R, Meier R, Artemov D: Receptor Imaging of Pediatric Tumors: Clinical Practice and New Developments. Pediatric Radiology 2008, May 16 [Epub ahead of print]
  24. Meier R, Piert M, Piontek G, Rudelius M, Metz S, Uherek C, Wels W, Daldrup-Link HE: Tracking of FDG-18 labeled Natural Killer cells to HER2/neu positive Mammary Tumors. Nuclear Medicine and Biology in press
  25. Sutton E, Henning T, Pichler B, Bremer C, Daldrup-Link HE: Cell Tracking with Optical Imaging. Eur Radiol May 28, 2008 [Epub ahead of print]


The Pediatric Radiology Faculty participates in the UCSF eScholarship Repository, which provides public access to their publications: http://repositories.cdlib.org/postprints/about.html

Future Directions:

Plans are underway for a new UCSF Children's Hospital at Mission Bay in San Francisco near the existing 43-acre UCSF Biomedical Research Center. The planned opening of the new 183-bed children’s hospital with the newest world-class, family-centered services including urgent/emergency care, pediatric primary care, pediatric oncology and other speciality facilities is 2014. The clinical and research program developments that are underway present great promise to yield significant new insights into pediatric disease.

Further information can be found at: http://pub.ucsf.edu/today/cache/feature/200711213.html

Resources:
General:
http://www.radiology.ucsf.edu/neurorad/resources

Pediatric resource page:
http://www.pediatrics.medschool.ucsf.edu/fellowscollege/resources/index.aspx

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