The "O" sign, a simple and helpful tool in the diagnosis of laparoscopic adjustable gastric band slippage.

Objective: The purpose of this article is to describe a sign on radiography for gastric band slippage, a complication of adjustable gastric banding surgery, and to emphasize the importance of this finding to radiologists and clinicians.

Materials And Methods: We reviewed the radiologic findings in 55 consecutive patients who underwent laparoscopic gastric banding. Between January 2007 and September 2008, gastric band slippage was diagnosed in four patients at our institution.

Use of 64-row multidetector CT angiography in blunt and penetrating trauma of the upper and lower extremities.

Computed tomographic (CT) angiography is rapidly becoming the preferred imaging test for the initial evaluation of patients suspected to have arterial injuries after blunt and penetrating trauma to the extremities. The increasingly widespread use of 64-row multidetector CT technology offers considerable benefits in extremity CT angiography in the trauma setting. These include the ability to generate isotropic data sets of long vascular territories, with the acquisition performed in a short time (10 seconds or less).

Extremity CT angiography: application to trauma using 64-MDCT.

Evolving multi-row detector computed tomography (MDCT) technology has resulted in increasing utility of CT angiography (CTA) in extremity vascular trauma diagnosis and characterization. Given the widespread availability as well as the ease of acquiring CTA in the trauma setting, CTA is increasingly being used as the initial diagnostic evaluation in extremity vascular trauma, replacing digital subtraction angiography in many institutions. One of the significant advantages of the application of 64-MDCT to extremity vascular trauma is the ability to integrate CTA into routine trauma torso protocols.

Detection of vascular injuries in patients with blunt pelvic trauma by using 64-channel multidetector CT.

Vascular injuries are a major source of morbidity and mortality in patients with blunt pelvic trauma. Digital subtraction angiography (DSA) has traditionally been used to detect pelvic arterial injuries and to treat active arterial hemorrhage. Improvements in the technology of computed tomography (CT) have facilitated the implementation of CT angiography, which is beginning to replace DSA in the evaluation of patients with acute trauma.