MRI

Cognitively healthy elderly people who experience atrophy in the amygdala and hippocampus are more likely to develop dementia, according to a study in the January Archives of General Psychiatry.

This is one pinup calendar you probably won't find in your mechanic's garage. The "Big Brains on Campus" calendar features artistically enhanced MR brain scans of University of Illinois administrators, faculty, staff, and students. It serves as a promotion for the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology.

Advances in MR technology have improved the quality of abdominal MRI and hence the ability to assess intestinal diseases. Rapid acquisition sequences have reduced the incidence of motion artifacts from intestinal peristalsis, while the use of phased-array coils has increased spatial resolution. Several intestinal contrast agents have undergone extensive trials. Meanwhile, the use of sequences that modulate MRI signal selectively, for example by suppressing fat tissue signal, can improve gadolinium-related enhancement on T1-weighted images, as well as boosting T2 signal in pathologic tissues.

Contrast agents that can aid MRA examinations have been on the market for more than 15 years. Historically, radiologists could choose from a wide range of agents that, once injected intravenously, would flow through the extracellular space. They would then be excreted from the body relatively rapidly. These extracellular contrast agents are now being joined by a new class of blood pool, or intravascular, contrast agents that bind with molecules in the blood and stay in the circulation for longer.

The failure of MRA to make major inroads into coronary angiography is not due to lack of trying. Many different techniques have been attempted, often with encouraging results. Additional clinical trials, involving both healthy volunteers and patients, are ongoing. But promising research results in a controlled environment are no guarantee of clinical viability.

Contrast-enhanced MR angiography is the primary method of assessing vascular disease at many hospitals worldwide. While advances in technology ensure that CT angiography draws its share of devotees, MRA continues to win hearts and minds among radiologists who prefer the radiation-free imaging approach.

In the wake of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving every year, a city rises within the confines of Chicago's McCormick Place. It is a kind of radiological Epcot Center, a futuristic vision designed to dazzle; constructed of software, heavy iron, and handhelds; and swathed in platitudes.

Expert-i promises the ultimate expression of teleradiology: the control of MR scans being performed rather than simply the ability to read the results after the fact.

Neuroradiologists understand that high-grade tumors interrupt the blood-brain barrier, which presents as contrast enhancement on CT and MRI. Renewed interest in the phenomenon of permeability, however, has researchers looking beyond simple contrast enhancement and toward molecular mechanisms involved in permeability that may help them treat brain tumors more effectively.

Since the introduction of cardiac catheterization in the 1940s, development and implementation of cardiovascular imaging techniques have been a collaborative effort among several specialties, particularly radiology and cardiology. Many pioneers in CV imaging have held joint appointments.

On the same day that New York researchers received the top honor at the RSNA meeting for their poster detailing the benefits of an infection imaging agent, the drug's maker issued a warning about two deaths and additional serious adverse events attributed to the drug's use. The admonition was released by Tyco Mallinckrodt Healthcare, which markets NeutroSpec (technetium-99m fanolesomab), a monoclonal antibody-labeled radiopharmaceutical agent approved in the U.S. for the diagnosis of equivocal appendicitis.

Last year, an obese women in New York City claimed that her doctor suggested she go to the Bronx Zoo for an MRI because of her girth. Zoo officials, according to the New York Post, later said they had no elephant-sized MR machines onsite.

Carotid artery stenting does more than help prevent strokes. It could also improve thought processes in some patients, according to German researchers.

Neuroimaging techniques are revealing the impact of chronic smoking on alcohol dependence, with implications for treatment.

Your investment portfolio isn’t performing very well, and you’re beginning to wonder about some of your stock choices. Perhaps an fMR scan can help you get a better grip on the situation.

In a laborious clinical trial that involved hauling a mobile MR scanner over land and sea to the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, British researchers used T2* imaging to confirm the value of a new drug treatment for Β-thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder.

Traditional polygraph tests to determine whether someone is lying may take a back seat to fMRI, according to a study in the February issue of Radiology. Researchers from Temple University Hospital used fMRI to show how specific areas of the brain light up when a person tells a lie.

MR is going to the dogs … and cats … and horses … maybe the occasional gorilla.

Who will speak for cardiac CT? No one, when the setting is the annual business meeting of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance.

Perfusion and delayed-enhancement MR imaging played a central role in a recent randomized double-blinded controlled trial investigating the effect of intra-arterial stem cell transfer on the global left ventricular function of patients following myocardial infarction.

Delayed-enhancement cardiac MR imaging has been widely adopted as a powerful test for predicting the success of revascularization for heart attack patients. DE-MRI can significantly improve risk stratification of dilated cardiomyopathy patients as well, according to results of a prospective trial reported at the ninth annual meeting of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance held in Miami Jan. 20 to 22.

In 1997, while visiting the University of Washington, I dropped in on the Human Interface Technology Laboratory, known to the locals simply as HITLab. What drew me there was research into a surgical simulator. But what captured my imagination was a project exploring the concept of “virtual space” and an offshoot called “telesavance.”

When a particular joke goes over well with one sex and not the other, you might chalk it up to biology. Apparently, there are differences in humor appreciation between the sexes.

Radiofrequency ablation is as effective as resection for treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma, according to a study presented at the joint RSNA/SIR Foundation Interventional Oncology Symposium. The key factor is RFA's ability to easily repeat treatment on recurring tumors in a less destructive fashion than surgery.

Could patients with possible biliary and/or pancreatic disease soon be offered a pina colada before imaging? Not quite, but a team of Belgian radiologists has started serving pineapple juice labeled with gadolinium to boost the quality of its MR cholangiopancreatography scans.