Placental MRI: Development of an MRI compatible ex vivo system for whole placenta dual perfusion
Name
nihms-1628460.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
1.53 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
59ed288faa790b4a0e71d44dc9af4c18
Author(s)
Stout, Jeffrey N
Rouhani, Shahin
Turk, Esra Abaci
Ha, Christopher G
Luo, Jie
Rich, Karen
Wald, Lawerence L
Adalsteinsson, Elfar
Barth, William H
Grant, P Ellen
Date Issued
2020
Journal
Placenta
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Stout, Jeffrey N, Rouhani, Shahin, Turk, Esra Abaci, Ha, Christopher G, Luo, Jie et al. 2020. "Placental MRI: Development of an MRI compatible ex vivo system for whole placenta dual perfusion." Placenta, 101.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd Purpose: Placental dysfunction plays a key role in diseases that affect the fetus in utero and after birth. Aiming to develop a platform for validating in vivo placental MRI and investigations into placental physiology, we designed and built a prototype MRI-compatible perfusion chamber with an integrated MRI receive coil for high SNR ex vivo placental imaging. Principal results: After optimizing placenta vascular clearing and perfusion protocols, we performed contrast enhanced MR angiography and MR relaxometry on eight carefully selected placentas while they were perfused via the umbilical arteries (UAs). Additionally, two of these placentas underwent maternal perfusion via the intervillous space (IVS). Despite striving for homogenous perfusion across the whole placenta, imaging results were highly heterogeneous for both UA and IVS perfused placentas. By histology, we observed blood congestion in the villi in regions that showed low UA perfusion during MRI. In two placentas prominent chorionic arteries followed by adjacent veins underwent contrast enhancement in the absence of villous capillary blush. The single placenta from a pregnancy affected by IUGR had the most homogeneous villous capillary perfusion. Major conclusions: A dual perfusion system for ex vivo placentas compatible with MRI permitted assessment of UA and IVS placental perfusion. We observed spatial UA perfusion heterogeneity and evidence for arteriovenous shunting in placentas from normal pregnancies and deliveries, but relative villous capillary perfusion homogeneity in a single IUGR placenta. Future work will focus on system optimization, followed by physiological manipulation and validation of in vivo placental MRI.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute for Medical Engineering & Science
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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licens
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PLACENTA.2020.07.026
