Chapter 59 - Pediatric Molecular Imaging

Abstract

Compared to applications in adult patients, molecular imaging applications for pediatric patients need to meet additional requirements in terms of patient cooperation, time-efficiency, and safety. To avoid anesthetizing young children, ultrasound, optical, and photoacoustic imaging modalities have strong appeal as a first line diagnostic approach. For cross-sectional imaging, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and integrated positron emission tomography (PET)/MRI techniques are preferred over computed tomography (CT) and integrated PET/CT technologies because MRI and PET/MRI can be obtained with substantially reduced ionizing radiation exposure. Since most pediatric diseases are relatively rare, the introduction of new imaging modalities or biomarkers can be cost-prohibitive in Children's Hospitals due to limited use or lack of proven performance in children. Children's hospitals that are fortunate enough to substantiate the acquisition of new technologies are dispersed around the world and seldom have the opportunity to work collectively on optimizations of new imaging technologies toward the specific needs of pediatric patients. This chapter will summarize current and emerging molecular imaging approaches for pediatric patients in order to share current knowledge and to motivate multi-institutional collaborations.