Pediatricians whose patients undergo “routine” brain MRIs need a
plan to deal with findings that commonly reveal unexpected-but-
benign anomalies that are unlikely to cause any problem, reports
a research team led by Johns Hopkins Children’s Center
investigators. “Doctors need to figure out what, if anything,
they want to share with patients about such findings because
they seldom require urgent follow-up,” says senior investigator
John Strouse, M.D., Ph.D. , a hematologist at Hopkins
Children’s. In a report published online June 14 in the journal
Pediatrics, Strouse and team describe the results of what they
believe is the largest study to date of the frequency and type
of unexpected brain findings in children who get MRI tests for
reasons unrelated to these benign anomalies. The most common
reasons for MRI testing in children are seizures and headaches
or as a prerequisite for enrolling in certain studies. The
patients in the Hopkins study, all of whom had sickle cell
disease and were predominantly African-A