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Shreyas Vasanawala, MD/ PhD

Professor of Radiology
William R. Brody Endowed Chair of Pediatric Radiology & Child Health
Stanford Medicine
(650) 723-8087

Clinical Interests

  • Abdominal and pelvic MRI: Application of fast volumetric imaging to adult and pediatric abdominal tumors, solid organ transplants, renal function, and inflammatory bowel disease.
  • Pediatric Cardiovascular MRI: MRI of congenital heart disease.
  • Pediatric Musculoskeletal MRI: Applications of fast high-resolution volumetric MRI to sports injuries, tumors, and inflammatory arthropathies.

Research Overview

Our research interests are Novel MRI Hardware, Fast MRI Techniques & Quantitative MRI Methods

 

Novel MRI hardware:

Many applications of body MRI may be improved or enabled by optimization of dedicated radiofrequency receiver arrays.  Thus, we are actively developing new approaches to design and construction of miniaturized radiofrequency receiver arrays for optimized and personalized MRI exams.

 
Left image is from a 3D acquisition on a young child with a custom high-density coil. Middle image is a reformat of the source data and compares favorably with directly acquired 2D images in the same plane. This capability to reformat into arbitrary plans can greatly speed MRI exams.
 

Researchers:

 

Fast MRI techniques:

To enable more children to undergo MRI and to enable higher resolution imaging in adults, we are developing and validating methods that combine advanced parallel imaging, compressed sensing, deep learning approaches to image reconstruction and analysis, motion correction, and higher dimensional data acquisition strategies.

 
Compressed sensing acquisition in an MRA on a child with four fold acceleration. a) and c) are parallel imaging reconstructions, whereas b) and d) are compressed sensing reconstructions with the L1-SPIRiT algorithm. Note nicely recovered features with the compressed sensing algorithm.Similar example, but of compressed sensing image reconstructions of an MRA in a four year old with 12.5 fold acceleration of image acquisition.Compressed sensing acquisition enables acceleration to restrict data acquisition to only a portion of the cardiac and respiratory cycles, thereby reducing motion artifactsHighly accelerated liver dynamic contrast enhanced exam with 4 second temporal resolution.Similar highly accelerated acquisition, this time in an individual with rapidly enhancing hepatocellular carcinomas that only hold on to contrast briefly.Example of navigated T1-weighted acquisitions, which enable free-breathing contrast-enhanced exams. Note hemangioma (black arrow) and ring-enhancing metastasis (white arrow). The metastasis is evident only with navigation (right image), not without (left image).Magnitude image from a compressed-sensing time resolved volumetric phase contrast acquisition shows nice demonstration of a right coronary artery in a child, despite the small structure, fast movement, and high heart rate.Research at the Stanford University Department of Radiology has enabled MRI techniques that are rapid enough to capture multiple serial snapshots of tumors that quickly take up contrast agents that are intravenously injected.
 

Researchers:

 

Quantitative MRI methods:

Development and validation of accurate and precise cardiovascular flow and function measurements, noninvasive renal function assessment, and tumor therapy response.

 
Research at Stanford University by Dr. Vasanawala's team has enabled rapid comprehensive MRI quantification of cardiovascular flow and function.Research at Stanford University by Dr. Vasanawala's team has enabled rapid comprehensive MRI quantification of cardiovascular flow and function.
 

Researchers:

 

Grant Support

  • GE Healthcare
  • NIH: National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering