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.