[Radiology, research and the future].

This subjective and polemic review of radiology reports and analyzes the status of the field today and discusses some of the positive aspects and some of the problems in routine imaging and in research, in both an individual/academic and an academic/commercial context. Topics approached include the position of radiology in medicine as a whole today; turf wars between radiologists and other disciplines despite the lack of radiologists; the position of non-radiologists in medical imaging and imaging research; the marginalization of radiologists in research; and the question whether radiologists will be needed in the future. Additional aspects are: How can recent advances in digital, cross-sectional, and interventional radiology be turned into real advantages for patient treatment and how should outcomes research influence imaging research? Who should enter imaging research, what is to be expected by and from researchers, and which major themes are promising in the future?

Relationship between function and perfusion early after acute myocardial infarction.

To assess the relationship between baseline left ventricle function, functional reserve and resting myocardial perfusion in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). After AMI the presence of dysfunctioning but viable myocardium plays a determinant role in clinical outcome. Regional ventricular function was evaluated by echocardiography both in resting conditions and during dobutamine infusion (10 microg/kg/min).

Feature extraction and classification of dynamic contrast-enhanced T2*-weighted breast image data.

Unlabelled: The relatively low specificity of dynamic contrast-enhanced T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MR) imaging of breast cancer has lead several groups to investigate different approaches to data acquisition, one of them being the use of rapid T2*-weighted imaging. Analyses of such data are difficult due to susceptibility artifacts and breathing motion.

Materials And Methods: One-hundred-twenty-seven patients with breast tumors underwent MR examination with rapid, single-slice T2*-weighted imaging of the tumor.

Analysis of contrast-enhanced dynamic MR images of the lung.

Recent studies have demonstrated the potential of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) describing pulmonary perfusion. However, breathing motion, susceptibility artifacts, and a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) make automatic pixel-by-pixel analysis difficult. In the present work, we propose a novel method to compensate for breathing motion.