ICFO Prof. Turgut Durduran reports new advances in monitoring of neonates with heart conditions.
Each year thousands of infants are born with severe congenital heart disease, and an appreciable amount of them require major surgery during the first months of life. Thanks to recent advances in cardiac surgery, the infant mortality has been minimized. The current focus in the clinical community is oriented towards preventing common neurologic injury and improve the neurocognitive outcome.
A recent study by ICFO Prof. Turgut Durduran together with researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania describes a diffuse optical bed-side monitor that promises to be a future clinical tool for monitoring sick neonatal populations.
The monitor combines frequency domain near-infrared spectroscopy and diffuse correlation spectroscopy to measure cerebral blood oxygenation, flow and oxygen metabolism.
The results will be published in the Journal of Biomedical Optics in May/June issue in a paper titled “Optical measurement of cerebral hemodynamics and oxygen metabolism in neonates with congenital heart defects”.
