Roberto Romero, M.D., D.Med.Sci., chief of the Perinatology Research Branch at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, was presented with the 2018 William J. Fry Memorial Lecture Award by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.
The award recognizes Dr. Romero's distinguished career in ultrasound in medicine, and honors AIUM members who have made outstanding contributions to the growth and development of medical ultrasound.
"I was touched to be named recipient of the prestigious William J. Fry Award by the leadership of the AIUM for what ultrasound has meant to obstetrics and gynecology and medicine," said Dr. Romero, program director for Perinatal Research and Obstetrics, Intramural Division of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health. "For 66 years AIUM has been the venue for innovation and excellence in medical imaging with ultrasound in the United States."
During the AIUM's annual convention March 26 in New York City, Dr. Romero, a professor of Molecular Obstetrics and Genetics at the Center of Molecular Medicine and Genetics at Wayne State University, presented "Intelligent Navigation Sonography: A Frontier in Medicine for the 21st Century." His lecture focused on the use of computational methods to extract clinically valuable information from three-dimensional volume data sets. The research that is the basis for intelligent navigation sonography was conducted at the Perinatology Research Branch at Wayne State University and the Detroit Medical Center.
The William J. Fry Memorial Lecture Award, established in 1969, is named for a physicist with a strong interest in ultrasound in medicine whose innovative research efforts advanced the field of medical ultrasound. One of his most notable contributions was the successful design of an ultrasonic system used to pinpoint lesions in the brain without damaging adjacent tissues. This ultrasonic system was later used to treat various brain pathologies and, in particular, Parkinson's disease.
As a member of the AIUM for more than three decades, Dr. Romero has been an ad hoc reviewer, an editorial board member for the Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine for more than 10 years, and served as chair and vice chair of the International Relations Committee. He serves as editor-in-chief for obstetrics of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the oldest journal in the discipline.
He has published more than 1,000 peer-reviewed articles, nine books and 98 chapters, and has an h-index of 144. His work has been cited more than 94,000 times. Dr. Romero is an author of "Prenatal Diagnosis of Congenital Anomalies," the first medical best-seller that consolidated the knowledge required for prenatal diagnosis in obstetrics.
His areas of interest span from the early diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy, surgical endoscopic treatment of ectopic gestations, the use of ultrasound for the diagnosis of multiple congenital anomalies in nearly every organ system, the discovery of the role of cytokines in preterm labor and the use of vaginal progesterone to prevent preterm birth in women with a sonographically-identified short cervix.