Rationale And Objectives: Physicians report a lack of Transgender and Gender Diverse (TGD) health competency for medical imaging. This knowledge gap contributes to negative medical imaging experiences, discrimination, stigma, and diagnostic errors for TGD individuals. Medical education plays an important role in improving this.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnderstanding the pathophysiology of a disease allows physicians to make a diagnosis, alter its natural course, and develop and implement appropriate preventative and management strategies. With ballistic injuries, an understanding of how the mechanism of injury translates to the injuries observed makes it possible to make sense of what can, at times be a complex imaging appearance and mitigate against the long-term complications of gunshot wounds. In this article, the authors describe the different types of ballistic projectiles, their mechanism of injury as well as the injury patterns they cause.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMachine learning (ML) holds great promise in transforming healthcare. While published studies have shown the utility of ML models in interpreting medical imaging examinations, these are often evaluated under laboratory settings. The importance of real world evaluation is best illustrated by case studies that have documented successes and failures in the translation of these models into clinical environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA 41-year-old woman presented to our trauma centre following a high-speed motor vehicle collision with a seatbelt pattern of injury resulting in extensive rupture of her abdominal wall musculature and associated hollow viscus injuries. The abdominal wall had vertical separation between transected rectus, bilateral transverse abdominis and oblique muscles allowing evisceration of small and large bowel into the flanks without skin rupture. Intraoperatively, extensive liquefaction and tissue loss of the abdominal wall was found with significant retraction of the remaining musculature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Portable chest radiography through glass (TG-CXR) is a novel technique, particularly useful during the COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic. The purpose of this study was to understand the cost and benefit of adopting TG-CXR in quantifiable terms.
Methods: Portable or bedside radiographs are typically performed by a team of two technologists.
Background: Chest radiography is often used to detect lung involvement in patients with suspected pneumonia. Chest radiography through glass walls of an isolation room is a technique that could be immensely useful in the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to ensure quality and radiation safety while acquiring portable chest radiographs through the glass doors of isolation rooms using an adult anthropomorphic thorax phantom.
Background: Portable chest radiograph for COVID-19 positive patients and persons under investigation can be acquired through glass doors or walls of isolation rooms to limit exposure to the pathogen and conserve resources.
Purpose: To report our initial experience with acquiring portable chest radiographs through glass doors of isolation rooms.
Methods: Only 1 of 2 radiology technologist team members donned personal protective equipment and stayed inside the isolation room, while the second technologist and the radiography unit remained outside during the procedure.
Due to a combination of increasing indications for MR imaging, increased MRI accessibility, and extensive global armed conflict over the last few decades, an increasing number of patients now and in the future will present with retained metallic ballistic debris of unknown composition. To date, there are no guidelines on how to safely image these patients which may result in patients who would benefit from MRI not receiving it. In this article, we review the current literature pertaining to the MRI safety of retained ballistic materials and present the process we use to safely image these patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe use of diagnostic imaging studies in the emergency setting has increased dramatically over the past couple of decades. The emergency imaging of pregnant and lactating patients poses unique challenges and calls upon the crucial role of radiologists as consultants to the referring physician to guide appropriate use of imaging tests, minimize risk, ensure timely management, and occasionally alleviate unwarranted trepidation. A clear understanding of the risks and benefits involved with various imaging tests in this patient population is vital to achieve this.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecently, civilian patients have begun to present to emergency departments with a new type of bullet injury caused by a frangible bullet designed to splinter and deform in a predictable manner. This bullet "the Radically Invasive Projectile" (RIP) was developed by G2 Research (Winder, GA). In this article, we discuss the fragmentation pattern of this bullet as well present several illustrative cases in an effort to familiarize radiologists, surgeons and emergency medicine physicians with the characteristic wounding patterns and imaging appearances of this new variety of frangible ammunition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHere in Canada, we often think of gun violence as confined to conflict zones, terrorism, and more of a problem for our southern neighbor. However, in recent years, it has also become a Canadian problem with increased gun violence related to criminal activity presenting in daily practice. Radiologists play a critical role in the evaluation of ballistic trauma and must therefore be familiar with both the common and uncommon patterns of ballistic injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe purpose of this article is to review the renal injury scale revised by the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma in 2018, to identify terms commonly used in discussions between radiologists and surgeons and to properly apply the new classification parameters to various MDCT findings. The updated 2018 kidney injury scale from the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma incorporates the delineations necessary for modern nonoperative management of renal trauma, including percutaneous and endourologic techniques, and discusses the imaging criteria for each injury grade.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Much attention has been focused on management of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI); however, comparatively little is known about management of traumatic hemorrhage in clinically mild TBI. We aimed to clarify the role of clinical observation and repeat radiography for patients with mild TBI and abnormal findings on initial computed tomography (CT) of the head.
Methods: We queried the neurotrauma database of the Ontario Trauma Registry and the Sunnybrook institutional database to identify patients with CT findings of a traumatic hemorrhage or calvarial fracture between November 2014 and December 2016.
Blunt chest wall injuries are a significant cause of mortality and morbidity in trauma patients. Accurate identification and description of chest wall injuries by the radiologist can aid in guiding proper patient management. The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) has devised a classification system based on severity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe internal thoracic artery (ITA) is the largest thoracic wall artery and is clinically important primarily for use in coronary artery bypass grafting. A number of anatomic variants of the ITA have been reported; however, bilateral, aberrant lateral branches of the ITA never have. The importance of this finding lies in the positioning of the artery at a potential chest tube insertion site.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The aim of this study was to assess knowledge of ionizing radiation exposure from diagnostic imaging examinations among emergency department (ED) providers.
Methods: An electronic questionnaire was distributed to ED providers in a five-hospital university-affiliated health care system. Providers included attending emergency medicine (EM) physicians, EM residents, and midlevel providers (MLPs) (nurse practitioners and physicians assistants).
Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the yield and clinical impact of sacrum and coccyx radiographs in the emergency department (ED).
Materials And Methods: Consecutive sacrum and coccyx radiographs obtained in the EDs of four hospitals over a 6-year period were categorized as positive for acute fracture or dislocation, negative, or other. Five follow-up metrics were analyzed: follow-up advanced imaging in the same ED visit, follow-up advanced imaging within 30 days, new analgesic prescriptions, clinic follow-up, and surgical intervention within 60 days.
A 56-year-old man presented to the emergency department with a 5-hour history of throat swelling and pain and difficulty breathing that was exacerbated by supine positioning; he had not had any obvious antecedent trauma. His medical history included prostate cancer, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, deep-vein thrombosis, and stroke. Medications included warfarin (presumably for deep-vein thrombosis), antihypertensive agents, and a statin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough most trauma centers have experience with the imaging and management of gunshot wounds, in most regions blast wounds such as the ones encountered in terrorist attacks with the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are infrequently encountered outside the battlefield. As global terrorism becomes a greater concern, it is important that radiologists, particularly those working in urban trauma centers, be aware of the mechanisms of injury and the spectrum of primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary blast injury patterns. Primary blast injuries are caused by barotrauma from the initial increased pressure of the explosive detonation and the rarefaction of the atmosphere immediately afterward.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Probl Diagn Radiol
February 2016
The assessment of a gravid patient with abdominal pain is a clinical challenge, as one must consider not only the common etiologies for abdominal pain but also etiologies resulting from the pregnancy. Further complicating the assessment is the altered anatomy and physiology that result from the enlarged uterus displacing and compressing normal anatomical structures. This alteration of anatomy makes the symptoms of appendicitis more variable and thus the diagnosis more difficult.
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