Overview

Dr Simon Meagher is consultant sonologist at the Perinatal department, Mercy Hospital for Women, Melbourne. He also serves as Medical Director of Monash Ultrasound for Women where he oversees a team of 50 sonologists, sonographers, genetic counsellors, phlebotomists and administrative staff in delivering a tertiary level ultrasound service across south east Melbourne. Dr Meagher has dedicated 30  years of his term as Medical Director, teaching and lecturing in obstetric and gynaecological ultrasound both locally and overseas. He has delivered over 800 lectures, across 17 countries, and 43 cities worldwide. In 2015, he was awarded ‘Sonologist of The Year’ by the Australian society of Ultrasound in medicine (ASUM) in recognition  of his teaching skills and his commitment to  hands on training within the hospital setting at the Mercy Hospital for Women and for  his commitment and contributions to ASUM.

His interest in clinical research has focussed on early pregnancy screening and diagnosis he has published over 100  articles in peer review journals, including 15 articles  in the last 3 years focusing on first trimester  pregnancy screening and diagnosis. Dr Meagher has described five original sonographic fetal markers during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy. He is now focusing his interest on aneuploidy and embryo development from  seven to 10 weeks as we approach the dawn of a new era of genetic screening via free fetal DNA analysis.  

Dr Meagher has taken on multiple leadership positions - early in his career as the Chair of the Standards of Practice Committee at ASUM, examiner and executive board member for the ASUM Diploma of diagnostic ultrasound and later as council member of ASUM. Thereafter he served as Chairman of the Victoria Obstetric Sonologists group and on several  ISUOG Sub-Committees  at the  International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetric and Gynaecological Ultrasound.

Country: Australia

Field: Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Specialties: Prenatal Diagnosis. First and Second Trimester Fetal anomaly screening. Aneuploidy screening and diagnosis. NIPT and prenatal Exome sequencing. Maternal and Fetal Doppler Ultrasound. Invasive Prenatal Procedures.  Ultrasound and Infertility. Tubal Patency Testing. 

Languages: English

Prof. Hye-Sung Won is currently the chairperson of Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at University of Ulsan College of Medicine and Asan Medical Center. She is a director of Fetal Treatment Center in Asan Medical Center.  Her special interests are Prenatal Diagnosis of fetal structural anomalies, Fetal Cardiology, Twins, Fetal Surgery and Fetal Interventional Procedures. She established the first Fetal Treatment Center in South Korea, which has been leading the diagnosis and treatment of fetal structural anomaly.

Professor Won is the President of the Korean Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (KSUOG) and the Chair of Fetal Assessment and Management Committee at Korean Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Professor Won, as the leader in maternal fetal medicine on Korean society, promotes research and education in ultrasound and is actively involved in supporting and connecting many other institutions together.

Hye-Sung Won is also a leading clinician of the largest Fetal Treatment Center in Korea and there making clinical and academic progresses of fetal diagnosis and therapy possible to develop further both nationally and internationally. She is exceptional in making diagnoses for cardiac abnormality including rare diseases, which is a very important part of perinatal counselling and management. She is the first clinician to do balloon aortic valvuloplasty for a fetus with severe aortic valve stenosis at 29 weeks of gestation in Korea. Moreover, she is specialized in prenatal diagnosis for various fetal disease and fetal therapy including shunt operation, fetal transfusion, radiofrequency ablation and fetoscopic laser surgery. She made over 500 cases of shunt operation for fetal pleural effusion, ascites, and lower urinary tract obstruction since 1999. She had done more than 200 cases of fetoscopic laser surgery for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, and the results showed high survival rate.

Country: Republic of Korea (South Korea)

Field: Obstetrics, Maternal-Fetal-Medicine

Specialties: Prenatal diagnosis; Fetal anomalies; Fetal cardiology; Fetal therapy; Fetal interventional procedures

Languages:  Korean, English

Dr Prathima Radhakrishnan is the Director of Bangalore Fetal Medicine Centre (BFMC) and FGi Fetal Care Units (FFCU), the latter being a chain of clinics caring for the fetus across the city and nearby towns which perform highly specialised Obstetric scans and procedures.  She is the first Indian to get Diploma in Fetal Medicine from Fetal Medicine Foundation, UK in February 2011. She is also the first to perform Therapeutic Fetoscopic Laser for complicated monochorionic twin pregnancy in the country. Dr Prathima’s passion for the fetus has made BFMC one of the leading centres for tertiary level fetal care and a premiere education and training centre for doctors desiring to specialise in Fetal Medicine and Genetics in India. BFMC is in the frontline of original research work, having presented several papers in regional, national, and international conferences.  In addition, research papers from BFMC have been published in leading national and international journals. She has over 50 research publications, articles, guideline publications and chapters to her credit. Dr Prathima is an FMF accredited trainer & examiner for the Nuchal Translucency scan, Anomaly scan, Doppler, and invasive procedures certification in India. In addition to training several doctors onsite in fetal medicine and obstetric imaging, Dr Prathima has trained several doctors across the country and abroad with her structured online courses in Obstetric imaging. Her research interests includes screening for aneuploidies, preeclampsia, growth restriction, complications of multiple pregnancies, and fetal effects of maternal diabetes.

Notable publications: 

Radhakrishnan P, Venkataravanappa S, Acharya V, Sahana R, Shettikeri A: Prediction of Fetal Anemia in Subsequent Transfusions: Is There a Need to Change the Threshold of the Peak Systolic Velocity of the Middle Cerebral Artery? Fetal Diagn Ther 2020; 47:491-496. doi: 10.1159/000505398

Radhakrishnan P, Phadtare S Fetal Therapy in India. Textbook for Neonatologists, in press, 2020

Shettikeri A, Acharya V, V S, Sahana R, Radhakrishnan P: Outcome of Pregnancies Diagnosed with TRAP Sequence Prenatally: A Single-Centre Experience. Fetal Diagn Ther 2019. doi: 10.1159/000503389

Kaul A, Radhakrishnan P. Performance of Common Down Syndrome Screening Methods Used in India with Construction of an Indian Nomogram for Nuchal Translucency/Crown-Rump Length Measurements in 14,337 Subjects. J Obstet Gynaecol India. 2019;69(Suppl 2):142-146. doi:10.1007/s13224-018-1196-3

Sharma, A., Tayal, T., BH, N., Radhakrishnan, P. and Kaul, A. (2013), Nasal bone length: the long and short of it. Evaluation of the reference values for the fetal nasal bone length at 16 to 25 weeks of gestational age in an Indian population. Prenat Diagn, 33: 800-803. doi:10.1002/pd.4114

Narayani BH, Radhakrishnan P. Mid-second trimester measurement of nasal bone length in the Indian population. J Obstet Gynaecol India. 2013; 63:2013–63. doi: 10.1007/s13224-012-0335-5.

Country: India

Field: Obstetrics imaging; Fetal Medicine

Specialties: Early screening and diagnosis of fetal anomalies; fetal cardiac screening and diagnosis of anomalies; fetal growth restriction; multiple pregnancies; preeclampsia; maternal diabetes; prenatal diagnosis; fetal therapy

Professor Liona Poon is an Academic Subspecialist in Maternal Fetal Medicine, devoted in improving maternal and fetal health. She has had a prolific research output throughout her clinical and research posts, including over 130 peer-reviewed publications in high impact international journals. In the last 10 years she has focused her research on establishing a programme for effective early prediction and prevention of preeclampsia, a major cause of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. With her success in developing a first-trimester prediction model for preeclampsia using maternal risk factors, ultrasound, blood pressure and biochemical markers, and on Aspirin prophylaxis against preeclampsia, her goal in the next 10 years is to improve obstetric care worldwide, through clinical research and education. 

Notable Publications:
Aspire trial: incidence of preterm preeclampsia in patients fulfulling ACOG and NICE criteria according to risk by the FMF algorithm. Poon LC, Rolnik DL, Tan MY, Delgado JL, Tsokaki T, Akolekar R, Singh M, Andrade W, Efeturk T, Jani JC, Plasencia W, Papaioannou G, Blazquez AR, Carbone IF, Wright D, Nikolaides KH.
Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol 2018 Jan 30. doi: 10.1002/uog.19019 [Epub ahead of print]

Aspirin versus Placebo in Pregnancies at High Risk of Preterm Preeclampsia. Rolnik DL, Wright D, Poon LC, O'Gorman N, Syngelaki A, de Paco Matallana C, Akolekar R, Cicero S, Janga D, Singh M, Molina FS, Persico N, Jani JC, Plasencia W, Papaioannou G, Tennebaum Gavish K, Meiri H, Gizurarson S, Maclagan K, Nicolaides K.H.
New England Journal Medicine 2017, 2017 Jun 28. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1704559. [Epub ahead of print]

Country: China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

Field: Obstetrics

Specialties: Fetal anomaly screening 1st trimester and 2nd trimester; fetal biometry and wellbeing; fetal anomalies screening; aneuploidy screening; fetal anomalies; fetal growth restriction; maternal and fetal Doppler; multiple pregnancy; preeclampsia; preterm delivery; fetal growth; detection of fetal and neonatal growth abnormalities; ultrasound on the labour ward

Languages: English; Chinese (Mandarin); Chinese (Cantonese)

Prof. Wonjoon Seong is an obstetrician at the Kyungpook National University Hospital Chilgok, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, in Daegu, Korea. He is the director of high risk pregnancy unit in KNUH and the vice chairman of academic committee of KSUOG.

For recent 10 years, his research has been focused on preeclampsia, cardiac function of gravida and diagnosis of congenital heart disease and published more than 60 SCIE articles. In 2015, he visited Wakeforest University for two years to study fetal programming using sheep model.

Recent his research about sonography is focusing on 1^st trimester scanning and placental vasculature in high risk pregnancies such as DM, HTN and FGR.