European radiology
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This review seeks to clarify the most important implications of higher magnetic field strength for clinical examinations of the whole body. An overview is provided on the resulting advantages and disadvantages for anatomical, functional and biochemical magnetic resonance examinations in different regions of the body. It is demonstrated that susceptibility-dependent imaging, chemical shift selective (e.g., fat-suppressed) imaging, and spectroscopic techniques clearly gain from higher field strength. ⋯ Currently available and potential future strategies to overcome related limitations are discussed. Whole-body MRI at higher field strength currently leads to clearly improved image quality using a variety of established sequence types and for examination of many body regions. But some major problems at higher field strength have to be solved before high-field magnetic resonance systems can really replace the well-established and technically developed magnetic resonance systems operating at 1.5 T for each clinical application.
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Comparative Study
Value of high-resolution ultrasound in detecting a pneumothorax.
This study was designed to compare the detectability of high-resolution ultrasound (HRUS) and bedside chest radiography (CR) for a pneumothorax. During the last 14 months, 97 consecutive patients who were admitted to our institute to undergo a transthoracic needle aspiration and biopsy (TNAB) of the lung were included. Both HRUS and CR were performed immediately after the TNAB procedure. ⋯ The diagnostic accuracies were 89 and 77%. The inter-observer agreement was excellent (kappa=0.85) in the HRUS images and moderate (kappa=0.49) in the CR. The results of this study suggest that HRUS is a more sensitive and confident method for diagnosing a pneumothorax when compared to bedside chest radiography.