[Computerized tomography false positives in knee medial meniscus injuries. Retrospective study of 400 cases].

Purpose: We retrospectively evaluated the diagnostic reliability of high resolution CT (HRCT) in the study of knee joint conditions.

Material And Methods: We reviewed the results of 400 HRCT examinations of the knee performed in 1993 and compared them with arthroscopic findings. The patients were affected with knee pain and the physical findings were insufficient for diagnosis but a sufficient indication for further instrumental tests.

[The usefulness of angiographic studies in the vascular complications of liver transplantation. The authors' own experience].

The authors report their experience with angiographic techniques in the diagnosis of vascular complications after liver transplantation. From 1986 to 1990, 78 patients were transplanted in our Hospital; of them, 8 underwent angiographic investigations for vascular complications. Angiography is very important when vascular complications are suspected, in the patients with a rise in cytolytic enzymes and in bilirubine levels, with hyperpyrexia, and with bioptic confirmation of no rejection.

[Lipiodol UltraFluid in the imaging diagnosis of hepatocarcinoma with cirrhosis].

Fifty patients with HCC associated with hepatic cirrhosis underwent intra-arterial injection of Lipiodol UltraFluid (LUF) during diagnostic DSA of liver parenchyma, 42 of them for a complete chemotherapeutic treatment, 8 for an isolated diagnostic control. LUF is known to be specifically captured by HCC neoplastic tissue, with long-term persistence in the lesion if injected in the arterial hepatic tree; this is not the case with other focal hepatic masses. Therefore LUF opacification can be used to demonstrate small daughter tumors not shown by CT or US in cases with evidence of HCC, or to diagnosis HCC in clinically positive patients with no evidence of tumor at non-invasive screening.

[Transcatheter embolization of expansive masses of the sacrum].

The authors report their 4-year (1984-1988) experience with TCE in the treatment of primary sacral benign/malignant and vascular bone tumors, after similar preliminary studies on aneurysmal bone cysts. Eleven patients were treated, for a total of 21 procedures: in 85% of the eight cases of palliative embolization, multiple instrumental approaches were needed for late revascularization, up to four consecutive embolizations in the same patients. Severe complications were observed in 19% of the procedures, due to arterial catheterization and/or instrumental maneuvers, but in none of them was surgery required.