Knee injuries: high-resolution MR imaging

Recent technologic advances have made high-resolution magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the knee a clinical reality. Ten healthy volunteers and 30 patients with suspected knee injuries were imaged using receive-only surface coils and two-dimensional multisection or three-dimensional selective acquisition techniques. Arthroscopic and/or surgical correlation was available in 15 patients. Tears of the cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament, and meniscus are illustrated. Nonorthogonal views of the anterior cruciate ligament are useful for demonstrating both femoral and tibial attachments in the same section. The posterior cruciate ligament is usually well seen on sagittal views. T2-weighted images are helpful for demonstrating collateral ligament tears and meniscal tears when joint effusion is present. Thin sections (1-5 mm) are necessary to define many meniscal and cruciate tears. High-resolution, thin-section MR imaging can be used to diagnose soft-tissue injuries of the knee and has the potential to become a major imaging method in the evaluation of knee injuries.     

Role of re-resection in early gastric stump carcinoma

Between 1971 and 1990, 26 patients were diagnosed as having an early carcinoma in the gastric remnant after ulcer surgery. Three patients with proximal tumour location were operated on with total gastrectomy. The surgical strategy in the remaining patients with tumour adjacent to the anastomosis was re-resection of at least 5-6 cm of the anastomotic area and restoration of gastrointestinal continuity with a Roux-en-Y loop. A margin of at least 2 cm from the carcinoma to the resection line was taken. There was no postoperative mortality. In three cases the preoperative endoscopic and histological judgement of tumour classification and stage was incorrect; when the surgical specimens were examined one patient was found to have advanced carcinoma and in the other two no malignancy could be found. Median follow-up was 15 years (range 3-19 years). During follow-up, six of the re-resected patients developed recurrences, all located in the gastric remnant. Four patients with recurrence underwent reoperation with total gastrectomy, one had exploratory laparotomy and one had no further surgery. No postoperative deaths occurred. Three of the six patients died from gastric carcinoma. We conclude that this surgical strategy failed to prevent local recurrence of an early form of gastric carcinoma, considered to be potentially curable in virtually all cases. Partial resection of the gastric remnant as the treatment of choice in patients with early gastric stump carcinoma cannot be recommended.     

Port-Site Pyoderma Gangrenosum – A Rare Complication of Surgical Trauma

We report a case of pyoderma gangrenosum occurring at the site of a laparoscopic port insertion following laparoscopic inguinal hernia repair.     

Multidetektor-Computertomographie (MDCT) bei Nieren- und Hochdruckkrankheiten

Imaging of renal and hypertonic diseases has also profited from multidetector computed tomography which is now widely available. MDCT is increasingly being used when there are indications for conventional (invasive) angiography and has completely supplanted i.v. urography. In order to minimize the total radiation dose a tailor-made investigation protocol must be applied in every situation. As far as this makes sense low-dose protocols (e.g. for the diagnosis of urolithiasis) should be applied. Improvement of the longitudinal resolution (z-axis) and the resulting isotropic voxels means that many options for image reconstruction are now available. The production of multiplanar reconstructions, thinner slice or 3-D reconstruction can greatly assist the diagnosis in many cases. The fundament of a conclusive examination is also a good communication between clinical physicians and radiologists.     

Genetic factors affecting the consistency and magnitude of changes in plasma cholesterol in response to dietary challenge

We examined the role of common genetic variation in determining the consistency and magnitude of change in plasma total cholesterol (TC) levels in response to two separate changes from a high-saturated (SFA) to a low-saturated/high-polyunsaturated-fat (PUFA) diet, in a group of free-living healthy men and women. Consistent responders were defined as those whose mean difference in the change in TC was within one SD of the mean for all participants, and the remainder were defined as variable responders. DNA was obtained from 55 individuals and genotype determined at the apolipoprotein (apo) B locus (signal peptide, SP), apoCIII (C1100-T) and lipoprotein lipase (LPL) gene loci (HindIII). In the 38 consistent responders, the apoBSP24 allele was significantly more common than in the 17 individuals with a variable response (0.29 vs. 0.12; p < 0.05). No other polymorphism showed a significant frequency difference between groups. In the group as a whole, the correlation between the change in TC level in response to the first and second dietary change was 0.28 (p = 0.05), but those with one or more apoB SP24 alleles and those with the apoCIII genotype CC had a significantly higher correlation than those with other genotypes (0.46 (p = 0.05) vs. 0.12 (NS) and 0.31 (p = 0.05) vs. 0.02 (NS), respectively). In the group as a whole, mean response left TC 10% higher on the SFA than on the PUFA diet, and neither apoB nor apoCIII genotypes affected the magnitude of this response. However, individuals with the LPL HindIII genotype H+ H+ had a significantly smaller change in mean TC in response to diet than those with one or more H- allele (9.3% vs. 14.4%; p = 0.03). Thus variation at the apoB and apoCIII loci affects the consistency of response to change in dietary fat content, while variation at the LPL gene locus affects magnitude of response.