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Spinal cord ultrasonography of the newborn

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Abstract

Ultrasound represents the first-line survey for the assessment of spinal cord development abnormalities. In fact, within 6 months of life, the non-ossification of neuronal arcs provides an excellent acoustic window that allows a detailed depiction of the spinal canal, its content and of the surrounding soft tissues. Nevertheless, an accurate ultrasound examination requires a complete knowledge of the anatomy, the condition of normality, the frequent anatomical variants and the main pathologies involved. This review is intended to briefly summarize the US technique, the main clinical indication and the key notions that could help to properly perform this type of ultrasound examination.

Sommario

L’ecografia rappresenta l’indagine di prima linea per la valutazione delle anomalie dello sviluppo del midollo spinale. Infatti, entro i sei mesi di vita, la mancata ossificazione degli archi neurali offre un’eccellente finestra acustica che permette una dettagliata valutazione del canale spinale, del suo contenuto e dei tessuti molli circostanti. Tuttavia, un’accurata valutazione ecografica non può prescindere da una completa conoscenza dell’anatomia, delle condizioni di normalità, delle frequenti varianti anatomiche e delle principali patologie. Questa review ha lo scopo di riassumere brevemente la tecnica ecografica, le principali indicazioni cliniche e le nozioni chiave che potrebbe aiutare per eseguire correttamente questo tipo di indagine.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UOC Radiologia e Neuroradiologia, Dipartimento di diagnostica per immagini, Radioterapia Oncologica ed Ematologia, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS, L.go F. Vito 1, 00168, Rome, Italy

    Iacopo Valente, Alessandro Pedicelli & Cesare Colosimo

  2. Istituto di Radiologia, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy

    Martina Piacentini, Stefania Speca & Cesare Colosimo

  3. UOSC Radiologia Generale e PS, AORN Antonio Cardarelli, Naples, Italy

    Marco Di Serafino

  4. Dipartimento di Radiologia Pediatrica, AOU Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Gianfranco Vallone

Authors
  1. Iacopo Valente
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  2. Alessandro Pedicelli
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  3. Martina Piacentini
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  4. Marco Di Serafino
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  5. Gianfranco Vallone
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  6. Stefania Speca
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  7. Cesare Colosimo
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Correspondence to Iacopo Valente.

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The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

According to our National and Institutional regulations, retrospective analysis of anonymized dataset does not require ethics committee review.

Informed consent

No informed consent was collected as only routine diagnostic examinations were performed. All images were appropriately anonymized.

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Valente, I., Pedicelli, A., Piacentini, M. et al. Spinal cord ultrasonography of the newborn. J Ultrasound 22, 113–119 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40477-018-0345-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40477-018-0345-y

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