Journal of thoracic imaging
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Cardiac herniation as a result of traumatic pericardial rupture is a serious injury and a difficult diagnosis to make on radiographic studies. Even with the more advanced imaging modalities, this rare diagnosis remains challenging. In a high-energy traumatic setting, there are chest radiograph and multidetector computed tomography findings that are strongly suggestive of cardiac herniation. The imaging, along with greater awareness of this injury, may provide a more rapid diagnosis, thus potentially preventing the severe clinical deterioration often seen in these patients.
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The purpose of this study is to determine the prevalence of tracheomalacia (TM) associated with different types of mediastinal aortic vascular anomalies in symptomatic children using paired inspiratory-expiratory multidetector computed tomography (MDCT). ⋯ Symptomatic pediatric patients with mediastinal aortic vascular anomalies have a relatively high prevalence of TM, especially those with IAC. Paired inspiratory-expiratory MDCT should be considered part of the routine preoperative evaluation of TM in symptomatic children with IAC and also has the potential to play a role in evaluating patients with other mediastinal aortic vascular anomalies.
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The purpose of our study was to describe our preliminary experience of evaluating mediastinal lymph node metastases with diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. ⋯ Our preliminary results show that diffusion-weighted MR imaging has a high negative predictive value for excluding mediastinal lymph node metastases from non-small cell lung cancer and has the potential to be a reliable alternative non-invasive imaging method for the preoperative staging of mediastinal lymph node in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
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Digital radiography and display systems have revolutionized radiologic practice in recent years and have enabled clinical application of advanced image processing techniques. These include dual energy subtraction and temporal subtraction, both of which can improve diagnostic accuracy for abnormal findings in chest radiographs, especially for subtle lesions such as early lung cancer or focal pneumonia. Dual energy radiography exploits the differential attenuation of low-energy x-ray photons by calcium to produce separate images on the bones and soft tissues, which provides improved detection and characterization of both calcified and noncalcified lung lesions. ⋯ Temporal subtraction is a complementary technique that enhances interval change, by using a previous radiograph as a subtraction mask, so that unchanged normal anatomy is suppressed, whereas new abnormalities are enhanced. Though it is not yet a product in the United States, temporal subtraction is available for clinical use in Japan. Temporal subtraction can be combined with energy subtraction to reduce misregistration artifacts, and also has potential to improve computer-aided detection of nodules and other types of lung disease.
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Chest computed tomography (CT) is routinely used for the evaluation of diseases of the chest involving the lung, mediastinum, pleura, chest wall, and diaphragm. Benign and malignant breast lesions are not uncommonly encountered incidentally on chest CT. The chest CT radiologist should be aware of the different breast pathologies and their CT appearances as some can be diagnosed by chest CT, whereas others, such as breast cancer, should not be overlooked. The purpose of this pictorial essay is to show various common and uncommon breast conditions encountered while interpreting chest CT scans in our daily practice.