Background During the current pandemic, there is an increased incidence of neurologic/neuropsychiatric manifestations in patients with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Neurologic manifestations may be coincident or result of disease and its therapy. In the emergency department, orientation of the clinician with this issue is crucial for accurate decision making to limit the spread of infection during neurologic treatment. This study aimed to be familiar with MRI findings in patients with Neuro-COVID. Seventy patients presented with neurologic/neuropsychiatric manifestation either post COVID or during hospitalization underwent cerebral MRI from April 2020 to June 2021 (39 men and 31women; mean age 43.27, age range from 16 to 69 years). Results Headache (80%), is the most prevalent neurological manifestations followed by smell and taste impairment (62.9%) and stroke symptoms (45.7%). Low mood and anxiety (17.1%), prolonged fatigue (14.3%) and depression (7.1%) are the most common psychiatric symptoms. Infarctions, hematoma and demyelinating disease are the most prevalent findings. There is a week positive correlation between MRI findings and CT chest finding but without statistical significance (P-value 0.2). Conclusions Cerebrovascular disease and demyelinating lesions are common manifestations of COVID 19. Familiarity of neurologists and radiologist in the emergency department and in-patient with this issue is crucial to avoid misdiagnosis and the spread of infection.
Background PET/CT is a well-established tool in the diagnostic workup of oncology patients. With the advance in diagnosis and therapy of oncology patients, survivors are at risk of developing additional malignancies. This study aimed to evaluate the yield of 18F-FDG PET/CT in biopsy guidance for the detection of unexpected additional primary malignancies in patients with known primary cancers. Medical records of patients underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT scans from July 2015 to December 2017 were reviewed, and 644 patients (346 men and 298 women; mean age 59.7, age range from 21: 78) who had been scanned for known cancers were included in this study. Lesions that were newly detected on PET/CT had not been previously detected by other modalities and were atypical in location for metastases were interpreted as suggestive of a new primary malignant tumor. These image findings guide the biopsy for histopathology, immune-histochemistry to confirm the diagnosis. Results PET-positive findings suggestive of new primary malignant tumors were found in 30 (4.67%) of 644 patients. In 21 (3.26%) of 644 patients, these lesions were pathologically proven to be malignant (20 true positive and 1 case false negative). Proven sites were lung (5 cases), colorectal (5 cases), breast (2 case), liver (2 cases), head and neck (2 cases), anal (1 cases), gastric (1 case), lymphoma (1 case), esophagus (1 case), and prostate (1 case). In 9/30 (30%) patients suspected to have additional primary, PET was falsely positive. Biopsy was taken for histology and immune-histochemistry with follow-up record that confirms the diagnosis to validate the PET/CT findings. Conclusions With the use of 18-F FDG PET/CT image- guided biopsy, additional primary malignancies were detected in at least 3.26% of oncology patients; thus, patient cure is possible if such malignancies are treated promptly and aggressively.
Background The objective is to describe the radiological imaging findings of post-COVID-19 acute invasive fungal rhinosinusitis (AIFRS), being familiar with the wide variety of imaging spectrum, thus raising the suspicion for early diagnosis. Methods: In this retrospective study, we reviewed the imaging findings in 54 patients with proven post-COVID-19 AIFRS who underwent endoscopic/surgical debridement from April 2020 to September 2021. Most of these patients presented with facial or orbital swelling or facial pain. Medical records with a special emphasis on radiological imaging (50 NCCT of the paranasal sinuses and 17 MRIs of the orbit) were reviewed regarding the degree of mucosal disease of sinuses, nasal cavity, and nasopharynx, extra sinus soft tissue infiltration, especially orbital and cerebral extension (parenchymal, cavernous sinus, vascular or neuro-invasion). Results We reported findings in 54 patients with post-COVID-19 AIFRS, of whom 30 were men and 24 were women with a mean age of 48.06. Unexpectedly, infiltration of pterygopalatine fossa was found to precede mucosal opacification of sinuses nasal cavity and affection of nasopharynx. Out of 54 patients, 49 showed inflammatory changes involving pterygopalatine fossa, 29.6% of patients showed infiltration of orbital tissues, 22 patients suffered from a fungal invasion of the cavernous sinus and 3 patients had carotid artery involvement. Conclusions Imaging findings of AIFRS significantly vary from subtle mucosal thickening of paranasal sinuses, up to orbital and intracranial extension with vascular thrombosis and neuroinvasion. The hallmark inflammatory tissue infiltration into the pterygopalatine fossa and facial soft tissue may precede mucosal disease.
Background Sciatic neuropathy is one of the most common neuropathies of the lower extremities. One of the most common presentations of sciatic neuropathy is foot drop and may also be associated with several other clinical (sensory and/or motor) presentations. In recent years, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has established itself as an important tool for the study of peripheral nerves, especially after the development of protocols including sequences optimized for this purpose, referred to as magnetic resonance neurography (MRN), being used as noninvasive means of diagnosing peripheral nerve disease. Such high-resolution imaging protocols aimed to image the nerves at hip, thigh, knee, leg, ankle, and foot and can demonstrate traumatic or iatrogenic injury, tumor-like lesions, or entrapment of the nerves, causing a potential loss of motor and sensory function in the affected area. This study aimed to be familiar with MRI and MRN findings in patients with sciatic neuropathy. Results In this prospective study, thirty patients presented with clinical manifestations and/or electrophysiological studies having sciatic neuropathy and underwent MRI and MRN at a university Hospital from March 2021 to March 2022. In view of clinical presentation, muscle weakness (66.67%), numbness and tingling (60%), and sensory manifestation (60%) were the most prevalent presenting manifestation followed by back pain (43.33%), foot drop (33.33%), and urinary and bowel incontinence (23.33%). MRN and MRI results showed a strong correlation with the presenting symptoms of participants, in the form of increased sciatic nerve caliber in 23.33%, muscular atrophy in 13.33%, nerve root impingement in 26.67%, and lumbar spondylosis in 36.67%. MR neurography sequences gave additional findings to the conventional MRI in the form of increased nerve signal intensity in 53.33%, perineural edema in 50% of cases, neural structure disruption in 26.67%, muscular impend denervation in 16.67%, bone marrow edema in 30.33%, pseudo-meningocele in 13.33%, and nerve root avulsion in 3.33% with no correlated findings in MRI. Conclusions MRN is an additional accurate tool in the study of different sciatic nerve diseases and can also give detailed knowledge of the nerve anatomy, adding value to electrophysiological studies and conventional MRI.
Background MR enterography (MRE) has been increased in the last decade as a modality of choice in diagnosis and evaluation of small bowel diseases in both children and adults. Lacking ionizing radiation, non-invasiveness, excellent soft tissue resolution, adequate luminal distension of small bowel loops are the advantages of this technique. Acquisition of images was used to be: T2WI, steady-state free precession, and T1WI, fat-suppressed gadolinium contrast-enhanced sequences. Multipoint Dixon sequence was added recently to the routine MR enterography protocol. The current study aimed to evaluate the added value of multipoint Dixon sequence as a valuable modification of MR enterography protocol for better assessment of small bowel lesions as activity of Crohn’s disease, small bowel polyps, fibrotic strictures, with modification of MRE protocol in the future with less time consumption and better radiological evaluation. Methods The current research was a prospective cross-sectional study. Data were collected prospectively after getting ethical approval from the ethical committee of the faculty of medicine, in our university. Study population The sample size was 69 adult patients with suspected small bowel lesions, within the period from January 2022 to 30th December 2022. Written informed consent was obtained from all studied cases before the study, who were enrolled in this study. This number was calculated by using MedCalc 19 program by setting alpha error significance of 0.05%, 95% confidence level, and 80% power sample. Results This study enrolled 69 patients with recurrent abdominal pain and/or bleeding in stool. The patients’ age ranged from 18 to 50 years, with a mean of 32.6 ± 8.8. There is slightly higher female prevalence. The most common positive imaging findings in the studied patients were mucosal thickening in terms of submucosal fat deposition (36.23% of the MRE examination and 39.13% of the MRE with added Dixon sequence). Adding Dixon sequence yielded significantly higher AUC (97.2% vs. 90.5%, p = 0.047), higher sensitivity (100% vs. 92.16%), specificity (94.4% vs. 88.89%), accuracy (98.55% vs. 91.3%), positive predictive value (98.08% vs. 95.92%), and negative predictive value (100% vs. 80%). Conclusions MRE is an excellent imaging modality in the assessment of small bowel diseases without the use of ionizing radiation. Developing MR-based sequences as multi-point Dixon sequence have the potential to improve the ability of MRE to image the subtle changes as Crohn’s accompanying early inflammatory changes and fibrosis, as well as small intestinal polyps. Familiarity with MR enterography is essential for radiologists and gastroenterologists who participate in the clinical management of small intestinal diseases.
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