Foot and ankle

the foot and ankle are ct scanned for several reasons. It shows great soft tissue and swelling, gout, fractures, fluid, helps physicians with injections, etc. the bones in the foot are small and ct shows better detail than xray in some cases. MRI may give better detail yet depending on what the physician is looking for.3D reconstructions can be veru helpful with factures and locations. Here is an image found at www.imaging.consult.com of a talar neck frature. It is a sagital view.

KNee

The knee is ct scanned to assess the degree of dislocation and alignment of the location. MRI shows more detail in ligaments and tears in the muscles. Ct also can be used to show fluid on the knee, which can be helpful in draining and etc. Here is an image of a ct that shows fluid on the knee found at www.gentili.net

Hand and wrist

The hand and wrist are also scanned in ct. However it is rare. Most often plain films answer the doctors questions. Studies show that is starting to be performed to help doctors with surgical planning and evaluation if the wrist bones such as the scaphoid. It is also used for tumors or arthritis problems. Here is an image of the wrist and hand ct focusing on the scaphoid. the image was found at www.worldortho.com . MRI is more commonly used to scan wrist and hands due to detail.

Shoulder

Ct scans are done on shoulders to show several things. One of the most common reasons the shoulder is scanned is to diagnose a dislocation, fracture or shoulder injury. A ct can also detect cancer, tumors, mass, abscess, etc. Here is an image found at www.medlineplusmedicine.com

Pelvis

In ct we rarely do just pelvis scans without an abdomen scan too. In the cases we do just scan the pelvis it is normally for hips due to fractures or dislocations. Here is a ct scan showing a fracture that was not seen in regular xray images. Sometimes fracture are picked up or notice on ct and not plain films due to their location or if they are really small.

Abdominal Ct

Abdomen pelvis ct are performed frequently. My favorite scan to do is looking for appendicitis. Normally when looking for appendicitis we use oral or rectal contrast and iv contrast as well. This can make the appendix appear easier since it is small and sometimes hard to detect. Abdomen scans are normally done with a pelvis scan as well. Normally you perform both scan together since the intestines and anatomy can be any throughout the region depending on each human body. Here is picture of a ct scan of a person with appendicitis. Information found at www.emedicine.org

Chest Vessels and Arteries

Ct is used to diagnose several illnesses and certain pathologies. One of the main ways we determine a person has a pe is by CT scans. You must use contrast when performing this scan. The contrast is injected with a power injector at a high volume rate. a trigger is used to determine the brightness of the contrast. You want the contrast to be bright when scanning to determine if there is a PE. Here is a picture of a ct slice with someone who has a PE. This information was found at www.emedicine.com

Ct Chest

The Ct chest anatomy is very important. There are so many things that can go wrong in one's chest and can only be detected on Ct. Xray can normally determine if one has pneumonia but ct can recognize the location and extent of pneumonia better. Pneumonia doesnt normally affect the whole chest. Ct can determine what lobes it is affecting and how bad the pneumonia is. Here is a picture of a chest ct without contrast. The chest is scanned without contrast to show fluids and pneumonia in the chest. Information found at www.radiologyinfo.com

L spine Injuries

The lower portion of your back aka the lumbosacral spine is the most common to have injuries or pain. An average of 45% of people have acute lower back pain. Not too many see a doctor. If lower back pain continues for a long period of time one should go see a doctor because it can lead to more severe or chronic back problems. Several things can be going on to cause your lower back pain, such as: compressions, disk bulging, spinal nerve decompressing, etc. Mri and Ct are used to diagnose most of these problems Here are a few images that I received from http://www.backandneck.about.org/

T spine Kyphosis

To me the t spine is very interesting. i started looking up things on kyphosis aka humpback and found some very interesting information on http://www.spineuniverse.com/. Kyphosis can be found in adults and children. It is most common in the tspine however it can be found in the c spine as well. The kyphotic angle is severly exaggerrated compare to the normal kyphotic curve we all have. There are several causes of kyphosis and narrowing them down is done by mri, ct and being examined by a physician. The two kinds of kyphosis are : postural and structural. Postural is caused by bad posture leading to the change of curve inyour back over time. Structural kyphosis causes vary and can be helped or corrected by posture, surgeries,etc .The pictures shown are of people who have kyphosis. One is of a ct and another of a xray found on: www.eradiography.net

Cervical spine CT

An experience I had this weekend was a teenager came in after playing a sport whom was unresponsive and after the ct was complete we noticed he had a 50 % anterior subluxation hangmans fracture. The boy will be paralyzed from the neck down now.

A hangman's fracture consists of bilateral pedicle or pars fractures involving the C2 vertebral body. C2's vertebral body being fractured and anteriorly subluaxtion or dislocation is normally associated with this as well. This is caused from a severe extension of the neck or spine. This kind of fracture normally blocks the airway and compresses the spinal cord.

Here is an image of a hangmans fracture on a ct sagittal view. The image and some information was found on : http://www.universespine.com/

Vascular Neck Injuries and CT

Vascular neck injuries mostly were found and explored by surgery or convential radiology. Today we are using ct to help with angiography studies of the neck. It is non invasive and easy to see pathology. Ct shows all the tissues and with using the contrast properly it helps with the vascular system as well. Vascular ct also helps with identifying aneurysms and more.

Information from radiology.casereports.net/.

Neck CT

A ct of the neck is a popular scan that is done at most hospitals. The scan needs to show the whole neck region which is from the bottom of the head to the top of the chest. A lateral scout is done to set up your scan from to help better define the skull and chest. This scan shows several things such as : gland lesions, head and neck cancers, neck masses or abscesses, foreign bodies, etc. Contrast is almost always used in neck studies to show the vascular system. Here is a picture of a neck ct.

Cranial nerves " Bells Palsy"

I was looking up cranial problems and I found out Bells palsy was caused from cranial nerve problems. I found this subject interesting b/c my profressor in the xray program was diagnosed with Bells palsy. He came to class one day and had slurred speech, droopy face on one side and his eye was watering uncontrollably. A time went on he gradually got better and better until one day he was back to normal. While researching I found out that Bell's palsy is caused when the nerve that controls the facial muscles becomes swollen or compressed. Over 40,000 americans are diagnosed with Bells palsy each year. I found my information from http://www.mayoclinic.com/

Sinuses Problems

It suprised me, when I started working in CT, how many people have sinus problems. It seens to a common thing and a lot of people have surgery to help with their problems. Sinus problems can cause infections, severe headaches, pressure in the head, and more. Some cases I have seen the patient actually gets severe vertigo from sinus problems. We perform sinus CT on all different ages. Sometimes antiobotics dont even help. If one has sinusitis and they do not have it treated it can lead to chronic sinusitis and severe infections. The way doctors help with sinus problems vary. One of the most common surgeries is nasal irrigation. It is a very common problems here and hopefully one day they will have a better solution.

Orbits and Grave's Disease

One disease that I find interesting is grave's disease. I figured this was a wonderful oppurtunity to talk about graves when learning about the orbits. The orbits help diagnose graves disease by determining changes in the optic nerve and orbital shape. In graves disease the orbits can be decompressed, which requires surgery and problems with vision. Other symptoms include: decreased ocular motility, exposure keratitis, optic neuropathy, and poor cosmesis per emedicine.medscape.com. Graves disease goes way back and was orginally called Graves- Basedow disease. In 1835 they described graves disease as hyperthyroidism, goiter and exophthalmos per emedicine.com In graves disease the thyroid gland becomes enlarged and is called a goiter. Picture by: http://spinwarp.ucsd.edu/neuroweb/Text/orb-220.htm

Pituitary Gland

I am writing about pituitary tumors this week. I find it very interesting that something so small can get tumors and can affect so much. In an article I read that 75% of pituitary tumors release hormones, which is a lot. If they release too much hormones thatn several things can happen such as:giantism, hypothyroidism, cushing syndromes, etc. Hypopituitarism is caused when the hormone secreting cells of the pituitary are damaged sue to the growth of the tumor. I received most of my information from the website: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000704.htm

http://www.ghorayeb.com/PituitaryMRI.html

IAC/ temporal bones

Wow the ear was a lot more complicated, as far as anatomy goes, than I expected.

I believe the part if the ear that I find most interesting is the 3 small bones, malleus, incus and stapes. They are so tiny and help the ear with sounds and protecting the inner parts. They help with sound by vibrating noises off eachother. They also have nicknames. They are also known as the hammer, anvil and stirrup.

They also do implants of the middle ear with these three tiny bones. I was doing a ct with a man that had the implants done. He was able to hear fine and had no complications.

Here is a picture of the three small bones I find so interesting:

This week we have been learning about the brain. I have researched on heamtomas aka brain bleeds because we have a lot of patient that come in with hematomas. There are two types of intracranial hematomas mainly casued by trauma, epidural and subdural. Epidural is described as a hematoma between the skull and first layer of the brain. A subdural is described as a hematoma betwwen the outer and middler layer of the brain. I found two pictures on the website http://www.merck.com/.

Hello Everyone

Hello everyone this is my pathology blog now. I do not know what happened. My name is Emily and I am a Ct Technologist at Clarian North Hospital which is aka Riley North. I have been doing ct for two years now but have not taken my boards. I am looking forward to gaining more knowledge in ct and mri , then taking my boards.