MRI

Historically, hope has been scant for catching any chronic occlusive pulmonary disease, including asthma and emphysema, early enough to treat and reverse, or at least stabilize, the condition.

Early 2007 has been a robust period for the publication of meaningful cardiac imaging research. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s landmark comparison of noncontrast CT and MRI for stroke confirmed what many neuroradiologists suspected: MRI is the new gold standard for the initial diagnosis and subsequent evaluations of acute stroke. In another compelling study, Swedish researchers found that heart patients equipped with drug-eluting stents are more like to die in the three years following installation than patients who received bare metal stents.

GE Healthcare warned European providers Feb. 7 to discontinue the use of gadodiamide (Omniscan) for patients who may be at risk for a rare and life-threatening skin disease.

The European Medicines Agency has warned providers not to use gadodiamide (Omniscan) in patients with poor renal function, due to the risk of nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, a rare and life-threatening skin disease.

Dobutamine stress perfusion MRI predicts myocardial infarction and death in patients with reduced heart function, according to a study presented at the 2007 Society for Cardiac Magnetic Resonance meeting in Rome last week.

A multicenter prospective trial involving 1210 patients in Europe has found that the odds of a favorable clinical outcome were one-third higher for acute stroke patients who received diffusion-perfusion MRI to determine the appropriateness of tPA thrombolysis than patients assessed with conventional noncontrast CT.

Using cardiac MR imaging to discover the underlying processes of cardiovascular diseases is helping researchers learn how to diagnose and treat heart disease more quickly and effectively. Scientific abstracts presented over the weekend at the 2007 Society for Cardiac Magnetic Resonance meeting in Rome demonstrated the value of preclinical research.

Cardiac MR imaging with delayed gadolinium enhancement can detect silent myocardial infarction in diabetic patients and predict the chances these patients will suffer a future cardiac event, according to a study presented at the 2007 Society for Cardiac Magnetic Resonance meeting in Rome. Findings suggest the technique could play a role in screening diabetic patients.

Efforts to advance cardiac MR applications that have immediate clinical uses appear in scientific papers highlighted at the 10th annual Society for Cardiac Magnetic Resonance meeting in Rome.

One sunny day in late spring 1982, I stood on the public observatory deck at the top of the Empire State Building in New York City with a visitor from Germany. I recall being on crutches, my foot and ankle encased in a plaster cast, having stumbled awkwardly while walking on a Long Island beach.

Teaching hospitals need to do a better job of informing patients about CT's potential benefits and risks, according to Yale researchers.

Using positional MRI, researchers found that sitting upright in a 90 degrees posture is not the optimal seating position to reduce chronic back pain.

Although MR colonography is proving to be an effective method of colorectal screening, patients are no more likely to accept it than optical colonoscopy. In addition, limited bowel prep protocols for CT colonography are proving comparable to full cathartic prep.

In an industry muddled by clever wording and hidden meanings, the announcement at the 2006 RSNA meeting that Philips Medical Systems had developed an MR system that can be upgraded from 1.5T to 3T brought to mind the rumblings of a forklift and weeks of downtime.

Over the years, we've had the privilege of checking the vital signs of many imaging modalities. Diagnostic Imaging served as a witness to the rise and fall of digital subtraction angiography and reported the PET crisis of the mid-1990s.

Armed with 3T MRI, neuroradiologists are making progress in assessing multiple sclerosis through application of newer techniques such as diffusion tensor and triple-dose gadolinium imaging.

Despite imaging advances for coronary artery disease, few clinically available tools can accurately characterize the lipid-rich core of vulnerable plaque. A company in Israel wants to change that with a disposable intravascular MR imaging device that entered clinical trials in the U.S. in January.

A prospective trial published in the Jan. 27 issue of The Lancet has confirmed suspicions among neuroradiologists about the power of MRI to diagnose acute stroke, while finding noncontrast CT surprisingly insensitive to the potentially lethal disease.

The Illinois attorney general’s decision Jan. 11 to join a case regarding alleged illegal kickbacks from imaging centers to referring physicians gives credibility to a lawsuit filed last year and kept under seal until now.

Data from the first study of its kind suggest that MR imaging makes more sense diagnostically than arthroscopy in patients with possible knee pathology. Dutch researchers published results from the multicenter trial in the January issue of Radiology.

Cardiac MR imaging should be performed in elderly patients with acute chest pain to rule out Tako-Tsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome. The test could spare them a trip to the cath lab.

Selected peer-reviewed studies published from mid-December to mid-January added additional credence to the ability of delayed-enhancement MR angiography to assess myocardial infarction. Research expanded the list of cardiovascular capabilities of 64-slice CT to include predicting the future risk of coronary artery disease and uncovering the causes of unexplained chest pain. Artificial intelligence promises to make ejection fraction measurement with echocardiography faster and easier, and near-infrared fluorescence imaging creates a new dimension to thrombus imaging.

Findings by a team in Scotland have opened the way to an accurate predictive test that might help prevent the onset of schizophrenia. MR scans have revealed changes in brain tissue in a small group of individuals before they developed schizophrenia.

Use of breast ultrasound and MRI in Medicare beneficiaries has been on the rise in a big way, but the picture of mammography utilization in this patient population is less rosy.

The swift rise of percutaneous ablative interventions represents one example of the power of innovation-and how it can crush barriers that stand between discovery and adoption.

Researchers may agree that cardiac MR is the modality of choice for predicting left ventricular remodeling, but they remain split on which contrast-enhanced CMR technique produces the most accurate prediction.

PET imaging to diagnose brain tumor and monitor recurrence after treatment is an evolving field of research. Investigators at the RSNA meeting presented studies revolving around five tracers, as well as various permutations of imaging combinations such as FDG-PET with MR spectroscopy.

As a practicing radiologist for 28 years, I was happy to see the Point/Counterpoint repartee between Dr. Carter Newton and Dr. David Dowe in Diagnostic Imaging (September 2006, pages 24 and 25) regarding cardiac CT angiography. It's time the radiology community and the medical community at large understand the difference between real imaging professionals and doctors who believe that cardiac imaging is some type of divine entitlement.

MRI is underutilized in pelvic imaging, and it's only a matter of time before radiologists and referring physicians are educated about its utility, according to Dr. Elizabeth Sadowski, an assistant professor of radiology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Half of the people in the U.S. older than 50 could suffer fractures caused by osteoporosis over the next 13 years, according to a 2005 Surgeon General's report. Such ominous predictions move musculoskeletal conditions to the top of a long list of chronic diseases confronting baby boomers.