A lesion on the liver can mean any number of things. A complex condition
in the liver can be a major problem. Treatment for any condition of the liver
will succeed if the detection of the condition is early. Diagnostic imaging procedures such
as the PET/CT scans
are what are normally used in order to characterize lesions. It’s been recently
speculated though that the PET/MRI
might actually be better than the PET/CT. As stated in an article published by auntminnie.com “PET/MRI provided
better diagnostic confidence due to soft-tissue contrast and complementary
information from different MRI sequences.”
The study conducted in order to arrive at this conclusion is the first
one conducted for this purpose. According to the study there is more accurate
differentiation and the article explained that “MRI offers enhanced soft-tissue
contrast and has proved particularly beneficial for patients with small liver
lesions. The modality has shown superior results compared to CT and PET/CT for
depicting and characterizing liver tumors.” While this is a first study it will
be interesting to see if greater samples yield the same results.
All conditions affect people in different ways, when you think of how
incredibly different people’s immune systems are. One patient can go through a
liver lesion and issue easily while the other could succumb to greater effects
almost immediately. The way the study was conducted there were 70 patients
enrolled. Of the 70 patients 39 were men while 31 were women. The study was
thorough and it employed experienced readers looking at the results of each sub
modality and comparing findings.
There is still the fact that it was only 70 people with a median age of
56 with a plus/minus of 14 years. The problem with that is that the variance
does not include or factor younger patients. There are too many factors that
have yet to be considered to say that the results are a fact. It will be
interesting to see if physicians start employing the PET/MRI more as a result
of these findings or if more studies will be conducted in the future.
If you have any questions about diagnostic imaging procedures please feel free to give us a call. Our team of dedicated imaging experts here at Clermont Radiology looks forward to answering any questions you may have and helping you with all your imaging needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment