News Pediatric Interventional Electrophysiologist Applies Engineering Background Into Medicine
Pediatric Interventional Electrophysiologist Applies Engineering Background Into Medicine
Lajja Desai, MD, joined the Division of Cardiology at Lurie Children's after completing her electrophysiology fellowship in spring 2020. During her fellowship, Dr. Desai, who works in collaboration with Michael Markl, PhD, and the Cardiovascular MRI Group at Northwestern Medicine, started a research study: Novel Non-invasive Cardiac MRI Techniques to Estimate Oxygen Saturations in Pediatric Heart Disease.
The team is working with Ohio State University to refine a protocol to measure oxygen saturations via MRI and potentially reduce the need for invasive procedures. Data thus far has shown that MRI saturation values correlate with the current gold standard of invasive catheterization measurements.
Read the study released in Spring 2020 by Ohio State University in the adult population.
Lurie Children's pediatric and multi-center collaborative results are to be released in the near future. In her faculty role, Dr. Desai is working with Joshua Robinson, MD; Cynthia Rigsby, MD; and Alan Nugent, MBBS; to build a comprehensive translational research program that bridges the engineering, MRI, and cardiac interventional realms to improve the patient care experience, enhance diagnostic data for complex patients, and expand the scope of interventional clinical applications.
