In patients with H1N1 pneumonia, post-ARDS pulmonary fibrosis is not a rare complication. Therefore, a CT scan should be performed in all patients with severe clinical findings. Our study demonstrated that in these patients, fibrosis could present a different spatial distribution and a different temporal trend, with delayed late onset; moreover, in one case, the signs of interstitial lung disease partially regressed over time. Therefore, CT should be considered not only in the diagnostic stage, but also during the follow-up.
The radiologist is usually the first to raise a suspicion of PAS in patients with severe dyspnoea and filling defect in the pulmonary artery, unresponsive to anticoagulation therapy. Combining CT and PET-CT proved to be extremely useful in assessing patients with suspected PAS. Early diagnosis with the help of integrated imaging remains today the main direction to pursue in order to obtain improvements in prognosis.
Chest CT can be considered a screening test in the assessment of patients with PAH of unknown aetiology, and the radiologist can help the clinician to identify patients with CT findings that make PVOD highly probable.
Background: The screening modalities for women at high risk for breast cancer has received an increasing role during the last years. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of our screening program comparing the diagnostic sensitivity of clinical breast examination, mammography, ultrasonography (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Methods: Clinical Breast examination, mammography, US and MRI for each patient with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation who underwent breast surgery in our Institution from October 2008 to April 2016 were retrospectively evaluated. The diagnostic accuracy for MRI and for the other surveillance tests in identifying early breast cancer were assessed. Results: Twenty-six female patients with genetic mutation underwent breast surgery. Twenty-two out of 26 (85%) developed cancer during the dedicated screening protocol whereas 4 women who underwent surgery did not have cancer. Imaging was able to detect cancer in all 22 patients (per patient sensibility of 100%), identifying all 35 neoplastic lesions (per lesion sensibility of 100%). The combination of Clinical Breast Examination, US and mammography aided the cancer diagnosis in 14 (64%) of patients with a sensitivity of 64% and specificity of 100%. MRI identified all the cancers, with sensibility and specificity of 100%. Moreover, in 8 (36%) of the 22 patients who developed breast cancers, the cancers were detected only by MRI, revealing a significant superiority respect to the other surveillance modalities (P<0.05). Conclusions: MRI demonstrated to be the best imaging modality in detection of breast cancer even for lesion <1 cm. Prophylactic mastectomy is the most effective risk reduction strategy in women at high risk, contributing to the reduction of anxiety related to the condition of a carrier.
Honeycombing is a dynamic process in which the overall trend is represented by a dimensional increase in cystic pattern; however, single cysts may have a different evolution (enlargement, reduction or complications). This behaviour could be explained by the variety of the pathogenetic processes underlying honeycombing, with cysts that may present abnormal communication with the airway, including the development of a check-valve mechanism.
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