A new technology — tablet-based ultrasound — has been used to measure bone age in relation to stunted growth and nutrition in children in Ecuador. Researchers hope to use the information to better address global public health.
“We adapted field-based ultrasound technology for use in public health research, with application possibilities in other low-resource settings where access to MRI might be limited,” said Lora Iannotti, associate professor at the Brown School and expert in nutrient deficiencies related to poverty and infectious diseases. “Importantly, the imaging allowed us to examine connections between bone development and child nutrition.”
Iannotti is senior author of the paper, “US Evaluation of Bone Age in Rural Ecuadorian Children: Association with Anthropometry and Nutrition,” published in the journal Radiology.
