MRCP is a noninvasive and accurate imaging method for diagnosing anomalous PBJ and congenital choledochal cyst.

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Neurinomas are relatively common benign tumors thought to arise from nerve sheath cells. Although intraosseous neurinomas may destroy the bone, extraosseous neurinomas with extensive destruction and invasion of bone are considered rare. We present two unusual cases of a benign extraosseous neurinoma that extensively invaded the vertebral body through the nutrient canal.

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Using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H MRS) spectra were obtained in vitro from extracts of four types of lung cancer (squamous cell, adenocarcinoma, large cell, small cell) and normal lung. The hydrophilic phase of the chloroform/methanol-water extracts yielded several distinct peaks. Among them the peak areas for cholines, creatines, glycine, and alanine, and their ratios were calculated and used as parameters to characterize different lung tissues. The ratios, cholines/alanine and glycine/alanine, were significantly (P < 0.001 to P < 0.05) higher for the normal lung than lung cancers. Creatines/glycine and creatines/cholines generally provided good discrimination (P < 0.001 to P < 0.05) between any two types of lung cancer. When data were further analyzed by discriminant factor analysis, there was 81.5 to 90.7% accuracy in predicting between normal lung and each cancer type, or among the four types of lung cancer. These results suggested that 1H MRS might be useful as an adjunct modality in the differential diagnosis of lung cancers.

The purpose of this study was to determine the advantage of a three-dimensional (3D) single-shot fast-spin-echo (SSFSE) sequence to obtain MR cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) with a .5-T MR unit by comparison with a two-dimensional (2D) SSFSE sequence. MRCP with 2D-SSFSE and with 3D-SSFSE with 128 echo train lengths was performed on 15 volunteers and 38 patients with pancreatobiliary disease using a .5-T MR unit. For maximum intensity projection (MIP) reconstruction, the section thickness of source images was 4 mm in the 2D-SSFSE and 3 mm in the 3D-SSFSE. 3D volume data in 3D-SSFSE were obtained using repeated short breath-hold of 2 seconds for every repetition time throughout the examination. The image quality, duct conspicuity, signal-intensity ratio (SIR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were evaluated. In 23 of the patients who underwent both MRCP and direct cholangiopancreatography (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography [ERCP]/percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography [PTC]), a comparison between these two modalities was also conducted. The image quality of the MIP image with 3D-SSFSE (49 of 53, 92.5% graded excellent or good) was superior to that with 2D-SSFSE (31 of 53, 58.4%). Duct conspicuity, SIR, and CNR were significantly higher with 3D-SSFSE than with 2D-SSFSE. 3D-SSFSE also showed a stronger relationship with the ERCP/PTC findings compared to 2D-SSFSE. 3D-SSFSE provided satisfactory quality, SIR, and CNR of MRCP images, even when a .5-T MR unit was used, because the breath-hold technique used during 3D data sampling minimized all types of motion effects.

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