The efficacy and clinical impact of brain imaging in neurologically symptomatic AIDS patients: a prospective CT/MRI study.

The relative efficacies of cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) brain scans for the detection of intracranial pathology in patients with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) were evaluated prospectively. Fifty homosexual or bisexual men with AIDS and neurologic symptoms were evaluated using both modalities. In 24 patients, MR images and CT scans provided the same diagnostic information (within normal limits in 16, cerebral atrophy only in 6, and similar lesions in 2 patients).

Air embolism complicating percutaneous thin needle biopsy of lung.

Percutaneous thin needle biopsy, a widely used method for diagnosis of lung conditions, is generally safe and effective. A near-fatal air embolism is reported that occurred during percutaneous thin needle aspiration biopsy of the lung. Successful treatment was accomplished by hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

The value of relaxation times and density measurements in clinical MRI.

The hope that MRI relaxation time signatures would identify tissues, specifically, malignancies, has not been realized. This is due much less to measurement inaccuracies than to a large intrinsic variability and overlaps between malignancies and many benign pathologies. Neither has there been success in predicting relaxation times from basic tissue compositions.