Mesentero-axial gastric volvulus in an old woman: a case report of a diagnostic challenge.

Gastric volvulus is a rare conditiom defined as an abnormal rotation of the stomach around itself. Acute gastric volvulus is a surgical emergency because it is a life-threatening condition, but its non-specific symptoms make diagnosis difficult. There are two types of gastric volvulus: organoaxial and mesentero-axial. The treatmet is surgical intervention. Computed tomography allows to identify and classify gastric volvulus and rule out complications so that to guide surgery management. We report a case of a mesentero-axial gastric volvulus in an old woman with abdominal pain, who underwent surgery in laparoscopy.

The value of DTI: achieving high diagnostic performance for brain metastasis.

BACKGROUND: The evaluation of brain metastases generally requires post-contrast MRI exam, but some patients have contraindication to contrast medium administration. PURPOSE: To investigate the value of the MRI diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) for detection of metastatic brain tumor. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the MRI data from 23 patients (13 males and 10 females) with brain metastases. The MRI protocol consisted in T1WI, T2WI, post-contrast 3DT1WI and DTI images (b = 1000) sequences. The brain metastatic lesions were counted in each of these sequences. We compared the advantages and limitations of different sequences in the brain metastases detection. The number of metastatic lesions identified on the contrast-enhanced 3DT1WI image is used as the reference. FA values were measured in the intratumoral, adjacent peritumoral and distant peritumoral edema area (PTEA) of brain metastasis, and the differences were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: DTI can detect more brain metastatic lesions rather than T1WI and T2WI. The number of brain metastases on DTI is similar to post-contrast 3D T1WI. There is no statistical difference in the FA value change between the adjacent and distant PTEA. CONCLUSION: The DTI original image can be used as an alternative examination for patients with contraindications to contrast-enhanced MRI. It has high sensitivity to intratumoral hemorrhage, which has advantage to detect brain metastatic lesions as compared with T1WI or T2WI images.

Osteoporosis: what the clinician needs to know?

Osteoporosis is a common condition and an important cause of disability. For this reason, early detection of the disease and patients at higher risk of bone fractures is compulsory. In the recent years, conventional quantitative methods have been spreading for the diagnosis of osteoporosis; moreover, new improvements in computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been made in this field and imaging findings may correlate to the morphological and structural changes within the bone.