The anatomic features of a 5,300-year-old mummy, the iceman, were documented with conventional radiographic, portable computed radiographic, and conventional and spiral computed tomographic images obtained between September 1991 and June 2001. A team of scientists and radiologists from Austria, Italy, and the United States supervised the examinations and interpreted the images. The images demonstrated excellent preservation of the mineralized skeleton with profound dehydration of the soft tissues. The skeleton exhibited several types of trauma, including (a) healed rib fractures, (b) hairline skull fractures and a compression deformity of the thorax, probably acquired while encased in the glacier, and (c) damage acquired during the effort to recover the corpse. Skeletal variants were present, as was evidence of degenerative arthritis, frostbite, vascular calcification, and adaptation to cultural and geographic influences. In terms of anatomy and apparent health-related conditions, the iceman was very similar to modern humans. An arrowhead lodged between the rib cage and the left scapula was the probable cause of the iceman's death. Study of the images also provided insight regarding postmortem processes that led to the iceman's mummification.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. In the future, a significant further increase in the incidence of prostate cancer is expected. Therefore, improvement of prostate cancer diagnosis is a main topic of diagnostic imaging. The systematic prostate biopsy ("ten-core biopsy") is now the "gold standard" of prostate cancer diagnosis but may miss prostate cancer. Contrast-enhanced colour Doppler ultrasound (US) and elastography are evolving methods that may dramatically change the role of US for prostate cancer diagnosis. Contrast-enhanced colour Doppler US allows for investigations of the prostate blood flow and consequently for prostate cancer visualization and therefore for targeted biopsies. Comparisons between systematic and contrast-enhanced targeted biopsies have shown that the targeted approach detects more cancers and cancers with higher Gleason scores with a reduced number of biopsy cores. Furthermore, elastography, a new US technique for the assessment of tissue elasticity has been demonstrated to be useful for the detection of prostate cancer, and may further improve prostate cancer staging. Therefore, contrast-enhanced colour Doppler US and elastography may have the potential to improve prostate cancer detection, grading and staging. However, further clinical trials will be needed to determine the promise of these new US advances.
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