Week 5 - Jawad

This week instead of following Dr. Gauthier, I shadowed Dr. Freyer in his clinic rounds, observing several babies of different ages. There were a few interesting cases that I got to observe.

A 62 days old baby boy who had more spinal fluid than normal. A mass in the cerebrum showed up in the MRI scan. An extraventricular drain was to be put in shortly (next day) to drain the excessive fluid. After the shunt has been placed, the baby will have to lie in bed all day, causing discomfort though. The baby exhibited multiple instances of low heart beat during the day. I was told that this could be an indication of increased pressure in the head.

A 36 days old boy, who required PPD when he was delivered, and then the heart started responding. He had elevated enzymes level, which could possibly mean that liver was damaged or not functioning well. His brain EEG was also continuously being monitored, and a spinal tap was scheduled for the next day to look for markers of infection. The baby though looked fairly comfortable and otherwise healthy to me.

There was a baby girl who was developing gigantic abscesses in different parts of her body. I was told that the size of these were totally disproportionate compared to the rest of her body. There was one on the side of her neck, which was drained a few days earlier and was still 'open', however the girl had developed another one the wrist of her right hand. The puss from that was to be drained the next day. The cause of these abscesses was currently unknown, and I would like to follow up to find more about her in the coming weeks.

Finally there was a 46 weeks old baby girl who had tracheoesophageal fistula and she also had thick maconium. This led to difficulty in feeding her through the mouth, and growing/developing. A case for surgery to connect her esophagus to her buccal cavity was under consideration.

There were several cases of premature delivery, and I couldn't help but ask Dr. Freyer if these babies would survive. The answer was a plain yes, and also that they grow up to become healthy adults. This was fascinating to know!

On the project front, now I am working on image coregistration. We are trying to see how well the T2 relaxometry (both pre and post-processed) images coregister to DTI one's. Most of this week was again spent trying to automate the process. However, the first results using just linear coregistration (FLIRT routine from FSL library) were encouraging. I hope to have more on this next week.