Empty Your Cup

medicalstate:

Unborn twins caught on video MRI for the first time.

Whereas conventional MRI takes snapshots of thin slices of the body as it penetrates through it, so-called cinematic-MRI takes repeated images of the same slice, then stitches them together to create a video. This means that a moving structure such as a fetus – or several fetuses – can be visualised in unprecedented detail. 

Marisa Taylor-Clarke of the Robert Steiner MR unit has been using the technique to study twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, a relatively common complication in which the blood supplies of twins sharing the same placenta become connected.