Clinical and surgical application of reformatted high-resolution CT of the temporal bone.

High resolution CT has played a pivotal role in temporal bone imaging since the early 1980s. Although the appearance of MR imaging technology with its superior demonstration of fluid-containing spaces of the inner ear and the posterior fossa structures, CT continues to offer distinct advantages for the evaluation of conductive hearing loss, and petrous apex lesions. With the advent of helical scanning techniques, CT is increasingly the imaging study of choice for definitive preoperative temporal bone imaging.

Utility of helical computed tomography in the study of arytenoid dislocation and arytenoid subluxation.

Conventional computed tomography (CT) has been considered a mainstay in the evaluation of the larynx. A major difficulty with utilizing this modality, especially in the study of the arytenoid, is the time necessary to perform a thin-slice examination through a structure that has a propensity to move with respiration and swallowing. Helical CT not only significantly reduces the time necessary to study the larynx, but enables one to perform multiple high-resolution multiplanar reconstructions. Eleven patients with arytenoid abnormalities documented by strobovideolaryngoscopy or direct laryngoscopy were imaged with helical CT. A comprehensive radiographic examination illustrating the cricoarytenoid relationship in all of the subjects was completed in less than 20 seconds by using axial reconstructions in 2-mm-thick slices at 1-mm intervals, with subsequently derived sagittal and coronal reconstructions. Helical CT may be a useful adjunct in the diagnosis of arytenoid subluxation or dislocation.