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Updated: Jun 10, 2026
08:04
Murine Fetal Echocardiography
Published on: February 15, 2013
Fetal MR imaging evidence of prolonged apparent diffusion coefficient decrease in fetal death.
T Tarui1, O S Khwaja, J A Estroff
1Departments of Neurology, Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. tomo.tarui@childrens.harvard.edu
AJNR. American Journal of Neuroradiology
|July 31, 2010
Summary
Fetal brain imaging reveals persistent decreased diffusion weeks after fetal death. This finding indicates that diffusion changes cannot precisely date the timing of brain injury, impacting cause of death investigations.
Area of Science:
- Neurology
- Radiology
- Fetal Medicine
Background:
- Fetal brain injury determination relies on accurate timing of insult.
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is crucial for evaluating fetal brain development and pathology.
Observation:
- Two cases of fetal death at 22 weeks gestational age (GA) were examined using MRI.
- Cerebral imaging demonstrated restricted diffusion (bright diffusion-weighted imaging [DWI] and low apparent diffusion coefficient [ADC] values).
- These imaging findings were observed 8 and 19 days post-mortem.
Findings:
- Decreased water diffusion in the fetal brain can persist for weeks after death.
- The presence of restricted diffusion does not allow for precise dating of the injury onset within a one-week window.
Implications:
- This challenges the use of diffusion MRI parameters for determining the proximate cause of fetal brain injury.
- Forensic and perinatal investigations require careful interpretation of diffusion imaging in post-mortem fetal cases.
- Future research should focus on establishing reliable biomarkers for timing fetal brain injury.
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