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Pediatric Research Grant Funds Study on 3D Imaging for Cardiac Patients

Jan. 3, 2024

The newly developed pediatric research grant sponsored by the Department of Pediatrics at Dell Medical School and Dell Children’s Medical Center was awarded recently to advance research and improve pediatric care.  

Richard P. Lion, D.O., assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, was awarded funding to support his project for patients with congenital heart disease. 

The research will allow development of 3D anatomic models using multiple radiologic images to create an overall visualization of a patient’s anatomy. Furthermore, the team plans on tracking the impact of using these 3D anatomic models to determine if the models help patients, families and care teams better understand a patient’s heart structure. 

Currently, the availability of highly advanced diagnostic tools like echocardiography, CT scans and MRIs provide two-dimensional slices of the body’s imaging. Key medical and surgical decisions often rely on this visual information going into cardiac procedures. After surgical repairs occur, there are changes in the heart’s anatomy that also need visualization throughout the dynamic process. 3D models will help provide a holistic view of the heart’s structure, which may reveal hard-to-see details and spatial relationships previously unclear. Rotation and manipulation of a heart model will allow exploration and simulations of cardiac function.

In addition to expanding the current trends of imaging for congenital heart disease interventions in children, researchers will begin creating pre-operative and post-operative data sets to use as a resource “library” that will greatly benefit future teaching and simulations with unique congenital heart disease cases.

This approach can be particularly helpful in diagnosing and managing complex medical conditions such as congenital heart disease. “We believe this innovative approach to teaching congenital heart disease care can help improve the hospital course of many patients and improve the expertise of our healthcare professionals,” said Lion.

We are proud to have this team improving the care of our pediatric patients through research and evidence-based practices. Improving imaging strategies, providing future educational software recognition algorithms and gaining insight on how this new imaging affects outcomes in congenital heart disease surgeries will have an important impact on this patient population and their families. We look forward to bringing you the results of this research study in the future.

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