Sarcoidosis is a multisystem disorder of unknown etiology that involves multiple organs. Computed tomography is theˆrst-line imaging modality for diagnosing sarcoidosis because of its capacity to detect hilar lymphadenopathy and pulmonary lesions. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging provides good soft tissue contrast that is useful for detecting sarcoidosis in some body parts, including skeletal muscle. Signal intensity on pre-and postcontrast T 1 -and T 2 -weighted imaging may re‰ect disease activity and the pathological appearance of sarcoidosis. In this review, we demonstrate these conventional MR imaginĝ ndings of hepatosplenic and muscular sarcoidosis and describe the usefulness of diŠusion-weighted imaging for detecting sarcoidosis.

Cardiac lipomas are extremely rare primary benign cardiac tumors. We describe a patient with a chief complaint of ventricular tachycardia associated with a lipoma arising in the left ventricular myocardium. The cardiac lipoma was qualitatively evaluated and its location was accurately determined noninvasively with the use of three-dimensional images reconstructed from data acquired by electrocardiogram-gated cardiac computed tomography (CT). Our experience suggests that high-resolution three-dimensional CT imaging may facilitate the determination of strategies for surgical treatment.

Non-contrast-enhanced MRI was capable of distinguishing three levels of renal function, including serious renal impairment.

Purpose: We investigated whether corticomedullary differentiation (CMD) increased to a pseudonormal appearance on T 1 -weighted magnetic resonance (MR) images in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) with cirrhosis compared with patients with CKD without chronic liver disease.Methods: We assessed CMD on T 1 -weighted MR images of 32 patients with CKD with liver cirrhosis and 32 age-matched patients with CKD without liver cirrhosis, grading CMD visualization as good, moderate, or poor. We calculated quantitative CMD by the ratio of the signal intensity of the cortex to that of the medulla.Results: The proportions of patients in each of the good, moderate, and poor groups differed significantly between those with and without liver cirrhosis (P = 0.048). In patients with CKD with liver cirrhosis, the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) differed between those with poor CMD and those with good or moderate CMD (P < 0.01) but not between those with good and those with moderate CMD. In patients with CKD without cirrhosis, the eGFR differed significantly among the good, moderate, and poor CMD groups (P < 0.05). We observed no significant correlation between CMD and eGFR in patients with and without cirrhosis (P < 0.05, r = 0.62).Conclusion: CMD of the kidney had a pseudonormal appearance on T 1 -weighted MR imaging in patients with CKD with cirrhosis.

Inflammatory abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is an aortic aneurysm of unknown etiology characterized by a thickened aneurysmal wall, perianeurysmal and retroperitoneal fibrosis, and adhesions to adjacent organs. We encountered a case of inflammatory AAA, which developed from an ordinary atherosclerotic AAA over a period of 14 months, with a rapid increase of 48 mm in the maximum diameter of the aneurysm over 12 days. This report describes the evaluation of the serial change by 16-channel multidetector-row computed tomographic (MDCT) angiography.

TAE/CRC dramatically reduces ethanol leakage to the systemic circulation without a decrease in embolization effect in the normal swine kidney, and it also reduces the likelihood of venous thrombus formation.

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