MRI

CT is moving beyond detection and quantification of coronary artery calcium to grading of coronary stenoses, identifying not only vulnerable plaques but, more important, vulnerable patients. Yet its ultimate role in predicting risk of cardiac events remains unclear.

A head-to-head clinical comparison of 3T and 1.5T MR imaging indicates that higher field strength produces no better than equivalent results for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease.

The FDA announced on Jan. 14 that it would approve the MR blood pool imaging agent MS-325, but only if Epix Medical completed additional clinical studies that demonstrate efficacy.

The prognostic value of cardiac MR was a prominent theme last week at the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance meeting in San Francisco. Dr. Rishi Kaushal, a CMR researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, presented results demonstrating that myocardial infarction size measured with cine and delayed-enhancement MR can predict the risk of mortality posed by the injury.

The permeability of gadolinium and the morphology of breast cancer can reliably predict whether those tumors will benefit from neoadjuvant chemotherapy, according to research presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in December.

Advanced computer modeling and artificial intelligence algorithms allow physicians treating prostate cancer to zero in on active tumor cells by mapping MR spectroscopy data onto ultrasound therapeutic images.

You're offered tickets to the Super Bowl, but you have an anniversary getaway planned for that week. Whatever your choice, two separate brain areas will battle it out.

Faster MR gradients, improved surface coil designs, and the use of an intraesophageal antenna functioning as an additional receiver have enabled researchers to document atherosclerotic plaque regression within six months of statin therapy. Previous MR technology could verify the same response only after a year of drug treatment.

Drug manufacturers are increasingly relying on functional MRI to help assess the efficacy of psychiatric drugs.

Imagine you are asked to discern between two groups of images. You are told that half contain cancerous lesions and half do not. The methodology of the study may already be flawed because of the way the brain creates false memories after leading questions or directions.

Studies have been limited of low-molecular-weight water-soluble extracellular substances such as gadolinium-based contrast agents used in MR imaging of pregnant patients. Effects on the human embryo or fetus are unknown.

With the help of diffusion-weighted imaging, spectroscopy, and directionally encoded color maps, MR is advancing understanding of hippocampal abnormalities in patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).

Radiologists need to communicate with referring physicians more often and listen more closely to orthopedics surgeons’ reporting preferences, according to the results of University of California, San Diego survey that were announced at the RSNA meeting.

Researchers in Germany believe that MR imaging should be included among the World Health Organization’s options for diagnosing sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), which is associated with exposure to mad cow disease.

MR findings show that commonly diagnosed causes of groin pain in soccer and rugby players -- conjoint tendinitis and osteitis pubis -- are far less common than believed, according to a pair of papers presented Thursday.

MR imaging prior to fibroid embolization therapy can uncover pelvic pathology, including adenomyosis and endometrial lesions, that might result in a decision not to proceed with uterine artery embolization, researchers report.

The use of MR imaging to screen adolescent baseball and college basketball players may avert injuries that could take them out of the game, according to a pair of research papers presented Thursday.

Researchers in Germany believe that MR imaging should be included among the World Health Organization’s options for diagnosing sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), which is associated with exposure to mad cow disease.

New data are refueling the drive for further utilization of MR imaging in the triage and characterization of breast cancer, according to studies presented Wednesday.

Research from Duke University, where stress fractures of the fifth metatarsal have been the proverbial Achilles heel of more than one Blue Devil basketball star, may help team practitioners identify players at risk for this injury even before symptoms develop.

In preliminary results from a three-country randomized trial, researchers report finding a correlation between MRI signs and the clinical symptoms seen in patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).

An Israeli HMO has reduced its high-tech imaging costs with the help of American College of Radiology appropriateness criteria that guide CT and MR use for its 1.6 million members.

With the help of diffusion-weighted imaging, spectroscopy, and directionally encoded color maps, MR is advancing understanding of hippocampal abnormalities in patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).

Patients hate endorectal coils. But results presented at RSNA 2004 show without equivocation that the devices boost the diagnostic confidence of imaging studies critical to determining how prostate disease should be properly managed.

Interventional radiologists can now see liver tumors freezing in real-time on MR imaging as they perform thermal ablation, according to Harvard researchers.

It’s been awhile since the imaging community paid much attention to open MR. But several products being exhibited this week at the RSNA meeting could perk up interest.

Radiologists need to communicate with referring physicians more often and listen more closely to orthopedics surgeons’ reporting preferences, according to the results of University of California, San Diego survey that were announced Tuesday at the RSNA meeting.

The disruption of dopamine transportation in brain white matter may be the underlying reason that children suffer from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. In addition, MR diffusion tensor imaging suggests that drug therapy repairs the damaged fiber bundles indicated in ADHD pathology.

The growing popularity of noncardiac pacemakers is putting additional pressures on radiologists to recognize them on MR imaging, check for their proper positioning and complications, and determine the MR compatibility of the various devices.

Abdominal MR angiography can now be performed in real-time, essentially eliminating digital subtraction angiography’s one remaining edge, according to a study published in the October issue of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.