Abdominal imaging
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Review
Beyond decreased bowel enhancement: acute abnormalities of the mesenteric and portal vasculature.
Acute mesenteric ischemia (AMI) is a potentially life-threatening condition with an associated high mortality. Prompt diagnosis is crucial to achieve a favorable outcome. ⋯ In this pictorial essay, we review the appropriate imaging evaluation of a patient with suspected AMI, and we review both the common and uncommon etiologies of mesenteric ischemia. With each etiology presented, relevant clinical and imaging findings, as well as potential treatments, are reviewed.
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Body packing is the ingestion or insertion in the human body of packed illicit substances. Over the last 20 years, drug smuggling has increased global and new means of transport of narcotics have emerged. Among these, the most frequent one is the gastrointestinal tract: from mouth to anus, vagina, and ears. ⋯ To improve diagnostic accuracy and prevent hazardous complications, radiologists and emergency physicians should be familiar with radiologic features of body packing. The radiologist plays both a social and a medico-legal role in their assessment, and it should not be limited only to the identification of the packages but must also provide accurate information about their number and their exact location. In this review, we focus on diagnostic errors and medico-legal issues related to the radiological assessment of body packers.
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Small bowel obstruction (SBO) accounts for a considerable proportion of emergency room visits, inpatient admissions, and surgical interventions in the United States. Multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) plays a key role in imaging patients presenting with acute symptoms suggestive of SBO, which helps in establishing the diagnosis, elucidating the cause of obstruction, and detecting complications, such as ischemia or frank bowel necrosis and perforation. Recently, management of patients with SBO has shifted toward a more conservative approach with supportive care and nasogastric tube decompression, as the obstruction in many cases can resolve spontaneously without the need for operative intervention. ⋯ Thus, it is critically important for radiologists to identify imaging features that suggest or indicated high likelihood of bowel vascular compromise in order to help optimize management prior to the development of bowel ischemia and eventually necrosis. By excluding signs of potentially ischemic or necrotic bowel on MDCT, patients may be spared unnecessary surgery, thus decreasing postsurgical complications and averting potential increase for the risk of future SBO and repeated surgery. Conversely, if imaging features indicate potential vascular compromise of the bowel wall that may lead to bowel ischemia, urgent surgical intervention may prevent progression to bowel necrosis and subsequent perforation.
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In just over a decade, hybrid imaging with FDG PET/CT has become a standard bearer in the management of cancer patients. An exquisitely sensitive whole-body imaging modality, it combines the ability to detect subtle biologic changes with FDG PET and the anatomic information offered by CT scans. ⋯ It offers unparalleled spatial resolution and functional multi-parametric data combined with biologic information in the non-invasive detection and characterization of diseases, without the deleterious effects of ionizing radiation. This article reviews the basic principles of FDG PET and MR imaging, discusses the salient technical developments of hybrid PET/MR systems, and provides an introduction to FDG PET/MR image acquisition.
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Review Case Reports
Abdominal imaging findings in gastrointestinal basidiobolomycosis.
To describe the abdominal imaging findings of patients with gastrointestinal Basidiobolus ranarum infection. ⋯ Radiologists should consider GIB when a patient from an arid climate presents with abdominal pain, weight loss, and an inflammatory abdominal mass on CT. Abdominal masses of the colon or liver, bowel wall thickening, and abscesses are the most common imaging findings.