EFSUMB Paediatric CEUS Registry

Dear EFSUMB Members,

Since 2002 intravenous contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) has been performed in children, with the potential to meet indications normally necessitating CE-CT and CE-MR examinations. Off-label use (and reimbursement) of any drug remains a challenge in paediatric practice in Europe because many drugs are not subject to randomized trials in children, therefore are not specifically licensed for paediatric use.

Application of CEUS in children has been addressed by the European Federation of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (EFSUMB) position statement discussing the status of CEUS applications in children.

The EFSUMB Paediatric Registry was created with the purpose of collecting data related to paediatric CEUS. The primary aim documents the technique’s current range of deployment in European countries, potential value as an alternative to CE-CT and CE-MR imaging and secondly, to assesses and record the safety of CEUS in children. The potential of limiting exposure to radiation and nephrotoxic contrast agents was also ascertained, by recording the utility of the CEUS examination. The database was limited to the use of a single UCA, SonoVue as the sole agent licensed across European countries for adult indications, until the recent introduction of Sonazoid (GE Healthcare, Norway) in Norway for adult indications. The interim results have been recently published, please see the link from the EFSUMB website:

European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (EFSUMB): An Update on the Paediatric CEUS Registry on behalf of the “EFSUMB Paediatric CEUS Registry Working Group” 2021

Ethical approval was granted by NHS Health Research Authority, United Kingdom (REC Reference 16/SW/0042 and IRAS Project Number 164 664) for this European Paediatric Contrast-enhanced Ultrasound Database.

Further activities of EFSUMB include

• a paediatrics chapter proposed for the European course book, you are cordially invited to contribute. Ideally, there should be three authors from different EFSUMB National Societies. 

• EFSUMB is also working on a comprehensive atlas as well as illustrations of the rare and rarest diseases in childhood.

• Incidental findings in childhood are also an issue, and in cooperation with the WFUMB, Incidental findings of the liver in children is largely complete.

We are inviting paediatricians who are interested to promote paediatric issues in EFSUMB who would like to contribute.

With kind regards,
Christoph F. Dietrich, Paul Sidhu and Christian Jenssen

Publication History

Article published online:
01 October 2021