specialized MRI helping personalize treatment

Dayton Children’s joins the select league of children’s hospitals offering advanced imaging of the upper airway. With the addition of special software, we can now use MRI capabilities to visualize airway dynamics, identify the site of obstructions and precisely measure the severity of blockage. Specialists can then create a treatment plan personalized to the exact specifications the patient needs, improving outcomes.

It’s called a cine MRI, short for cinema for the moving images that are captured. Specialists can see the movement of the airway walls to determine the extent and location of the problem.

Dayton Children’s launched this service in March of 2016 with a multidisciplinary team of specialists from otolaryngology, radiology, sleep medicine and anesthesia. They have already completed tests on six children and expect to do 25 procedures a year. “Patients can get the cine MRI on either the 1.5 Telsa or 3.0 Tesla MRI scanner, as well as additional imaging to get details of tissues surrounding the airway,” says Elizabeth Ey, MD, director of radiology.

Maninder Kalra, MD, PhD, who was recently named medical director of sleep medicine, uses this imaging tool to decide the treatment option that is most likely to be successful in obese sleep apnea patients. Cine MRI is also especially helpful for Ravi Elluru, MD, PhD, medical director of advanced pediatric ENT and the aerodigestive center, in diagnosing airway abnormalities in children, especially those with genetic syndromes or craniofacial dysmorphism.

For more information, contact:

Stacy Porter

Public relations manager

Phone: 937-641-3666

newsroom@childrensdayton.org