Accuracy of contrast-enhanced MDCT and MRI for identifying the severity and cause of neural foraminal stenosis in cervical radiculopathy: a prospective study.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of IV contrast-enhanced MDCT and MRI for evaluation of the severity and cause of neural foraminal stenosis in patients with cervical radiculopathy.

Subjects And Methods: Eighteen patients with cervical radiculopathy prospectively underwent contrast-enhanced MDCT and MRI. Contrast-enhanced MDCT scans were acquired at 1-mm thickness and reconstructed in oblique axial (parallel to disk) and sagittal (perpendicular to neural foramen) 2-mm sections without a gap.

Diffusion-weighted imaging characteristics of primary central nervous system germinoma with histopathologic correlation: a retrospective study.

Rationale And Objectives: The aim of this study was to quantify, using diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging, the microscopic rate of water diffusion in pure germinoma and to determine whether or not the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values correlated with the different histologic components.

Materials And Methods: A retrospective analysis of echoplanar diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance images was conducted on 10 patients with 11 germinoma lesions. All images were obtained using 1.

Multichannel CT: evaluating the spine in postoperative patients with orthopedic hardware.

Evaluating the spine in patients with metal orthopedic hardware is challenging. Although the effectiveness of conventional computed tomography (CT) can be limited by severe beam-hardening artifacts, the evolution of multichannel CT in recent years has made available new techniques that can help minimize these artifacts. Multichannel CT allows faster scanning times, resulting in reduced motion artifacts; thinner sections, with which it is possible to create a scanned volume of isotropic voxels with equivalent image resolution in all planes; and the generation of a higher x-ray tube current, which may result in better penetration of metal hardware and reduction of artifacts.

Science to practice: do mural attenuation and thickness at contrast-enhanced CT enterography correlate with endoscopic and histologic findings of inflammation in Crohn disease?

Endoscopy is frequently used as the reference standard in the evaluation of inflammation. However, endoscopy enables visualization of the mucosa only, has a limited reach, and has difficulty in anatomic orientation. Therefore, it is not a stand-alone diagnostic procedure.

The porcine hemodialysis access model.

Purpose: To create a porcine hemodialysis access model that reliably reproduces intimal hyperplasia (IH) of the outflow vein similar to that which causes access failure in human patients undergoing dialysis treatments.

Materials And Methods: Surgical technique for creation of side-to-side iliac-artery-to-ipsilateral-iliac-vein (IAV) native fistulas and IAV conduits was optimized in three standard-bred pigs. Persistent patency of fistulas and conduits was demonstrated in two additional pigs allowed to survive for 1 week.

Preclinical in vivo testing of a rotational mechanical thrombolytic device.

Purpose: To establish the safety and efficacy of the Arrow Trerotola mechanical percutaneous thrombolytic device (PTD) for restoring patency of thrombosed hemodialysis grafts.

Materials And Methods: The hindlimb model of dialysis grafts was created in six dogs. Animals had either unilateral (n = 4) or bilateral (n = 2) polytetrafluoroethylene grafts, totaling eight grafts.

Pulmonary emboli from pulse-spray and mechanical thrombolysis: evaluation with an animal dialysis-graft model.

Purpose: To compare pulmonary emboli resulting from pulse-spray pharmacomechanical thrombolysis (PSPMT) and mechanical thrombolysis performed to declot dialysis-access grafts.

Materials And Methods: Polytetrafluoroethylene arteriovenous shunts were created in eight dogs and were deliberately clotted at monthly intervals. Animals were randomly assigned to treatment with pulse-spray urokinase thrombolysis or a low-speed rotational percutaneous thrombolytic device.

Study of thrombus from thrombosed hemodialysis access grafts.

Purpose: To determine the volume and composition of clot within thrombosed hemodialysis access grafts.

Materials And Methods: Clots were collected in 22 patients at surgical thrombectomy of polytetrafluoroethylene grafts. Histologic analysis was performed in 10 of these clots plus 21 randomly selected clots from the pathology archives.