[en] Renal IV DSA was applied to evaluate 15 potential renal donors and 14 examinations of 12 renal allograft recipients. We evaluate the angiographic acute or chronic rejection, alteration of renal size after transplantation, excretion time of the contrast media and pre, post DSA serum creatinine level. DSA is a safe, easily performed, outpatient procedure and useful in evaluation and distinguishing status of surgical anastomosis, intrarenal vasculatures, arterial exception time and rejection phenomenon.

[en] DSA was done in 133 examinations of 128 patients during 2 years consist of 9 examination of IV DSA and 124 examination of selective cardiac DSA after cardiac catheterization. Open heart surgery was performed in 90 patients and 12 patients showed discrepancy between pre-and post operative diagnosis, showing a total 86.7% of diagnostic accuracy with DSA. We experienced the significant reduction in dose of contrast media, 30-40% of dose of conventional cardiac angiography. It is concluded that DSA is useful in the evaluation of septal defects, valvular disease and other congenital heart disease. DSA is an accurate simple and safe method in evaluating of cardiac diseases.

[en] Chronic central venous occlusion presents a difficult management problem, particularly when the occlusion cannot be traversed with a guide wire, a step which is essential for endovascular treatment such as balloon angioplasty and stent placement. We describe a less invasive technique in which the venous occlusion is traversed with a Rosch-Uchida Transjugular Liver Access Set. This procedure may be useful in cases where the involved extremity must be preserved for hemodialysis and where subclavian vein occlusion is refractory to traditional revascularization methods. (author)

[en] While treating 14 phenylketonurial (PKU) patients, we evaluated bone density, changes in bone age, and bony changes such as spiculation or metaphyseal widening. A total of 14 PKU patients aged between 1 month and 14 years (mean, 6.4 years) were under dietary treatment. Eight and eleven patients underwent radiography of the left hand and wrist and bone densitometry (BMD) of the lumbar spine, respectively. The results were reviewed with regard to abnormal bony changes, delayed bone age, and osteopenia. Patients were assigned to either the early or late treatment group, depending on whether or not dietary therapy was started before 3 months of age. Those in whom a blood phenylalanine level of under 10 mg/dl was maintained were assigned to the good control group; others were classified as variable control. The findings of radiographs of the left hand and lumbar BMD were evaluated in relation to the time of dietary therapy, and adequacy of treatment. None of the 14 PKU patients who underwent dietary therapy had bony abnormalities such as spiculation or metaphyseal widening. In four of the 11, bone age was at least one year less than chronological age, and on lumbar BMD, osteoporosis was seen. For the evaluation of bone change in PKU patients, plain radiography and BMD are thus complementary. (author). 18 refs., 1 tab., 2 figs

[en] To evaluate the usefulness of the wire-loop technique, used to perform percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) in occluded arteriovenous fistula when standard methods fail to pass the balloon catheter across the stenotic segment. In 30 patients (M:F = 14:16; aged 27-77 (mean, 51.3) years), the Wire-Loop technique was used to perform percutaneous transluminal angioplasty of insufficiently hemodialysed arteriovenous fistula where a balloon catheter had failed to pass through the stenotic lesion after a guide wire had successfully passed. Native and Gore-tex fistula were used in 22 and eight cases, respectively.Sixteen stenoses were located in the central vein, and fourteen in the peripheral. The puncture sites used in order to perform the technique were the femoral vein in all cases of central stenosis; three basilic, four cephalic, and five femoral veins in cases of peripheral stenosis and one femoral and one radial artery in cases of anastomotic stenosis. The guide wire was passed through the stenotic lesion, pulled out using the snare technique, and then stretched in order to tighten it. The balloon catheter was then passed through the lesion and traditional balloon angioplasty was performed. The technical success rate and complications of the technique, and the patency rate of recanalized arteriovenous fistula, were evaluated. In 26 of the thirty patients, (86.7%), the procedure was technically successful. In the remaining four cases, failure was due to venous dissection (n=1), marked residual stenosis (n=2), or cardiac arrest (n=1) during the procedure. The average procedure time was 105 (range, 40-210) minutes, and in three cases rupture of the vein occurred. The patency rate of PTA was 80% (24/30) at four months, 63% (19/30) at six months, and 30% (9/30) at twelve months. The expected technical success rate of traditional PTA, without the Wire-Loop technique, would have been 79.3%, but using the technique, the rate increased to 86.7%. The Wire-Loop technique appears to be a safe and valuable procedure in patients with insufficiently hemodialysed arteriovenous fistula, and is therefore useful in cases in which traditional PTA fails. (author)

[en] To evaluate the CT findings and clinical significance of colonic edema in liver cirrhosis. We retrospectively reviewed the CT scans of 221 cases of clinically diagnosed liver cirrhosis in 173 patients. In 30 of these [23 men and six women aged between 35 and 67(mean, 54) years], colonic edema was present. We evaluated its distribution (ascending, transverse or descending colon), analysed serum albumin and bilirubin levels, and in both the colonic edema and non-colonic edema group, determined whether ascites was present. Thus, we sought correlation between the presence of colonic edema, the severity of liver cirrhosis, and each parameter. CT revealed colonic edema in 30 of 221 cases(14%). Of the 30, 13 cases(43%) were diffuse colonic edema and 17(57%) were regional edema. Among these 17 cases, 12(71%) were seen only in the ascending colon, while five(29%) were seen in both the ascending and transverse colon. In the group with colonic edema, the mean level of serum albumin was 2.6g/dl, and that of serum bilirubin was 4.9mg/dl ; 20 patients(67%) had ascites. In the group without colonic edema, mean levels of serum albumin and serum bilirubin were 3.0g/dl and 4.1mg/dl, respectively ; 43 patients(30%) had ascites. There was no significant statistical difference in serum albumin and bilirubin levels between the colonic edema and non-colonic edema group(p>0.05), though ascites was more common among the former group. In cases of liver cirrhosis, CT evidence of colonic edema is not uncommon. The ascending colon is most frequently involved, though disease severity does not vary significantly according to site. When CT reveals the presence of colonic edema, further diagnostic evaluation is not necessary if there is no evidence of clinical symptoms

[en] Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has proved to be a valuable method for evaluation of the head and neck. Unfortunately, metallic devices associated with certain dental fillings and appliances often cause variable artifacts that can obscure normal or pathologic conditions on MR and computed tomography. In this work, we assessed the MR appearance of dental prosthetic materials in vitro and in vivo including precious alloys, nonprecions alloys, resin, amalgam and titanium alloy. For in vivo studies, these materials were placed in healthy volunteer's mouths and then images were assessed. Analysis of the appearance of shape and extent of artifact, and observed influence of these artifacts on the image interpretation at 0.2 Tesla permanent type MR scanner were valuated. Material used as temporary or permanent filling of crowns such as amalgam, precious alloy and, microfilled resin did not cause artifact on the image. The size of the artifact produced by the nonprecious alloys was influenced by the ferromagnetism of the object and the volume prosthesis, and was related to the scanning sequence. Nonprecious alloys produced minimal local signal distortion, where precious alloys, and dental resin had no effect on the MR images in vivo. These results were mainly from a low field strength MR scanner used in this study

[en] We evaluated the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of femoral heads in 20 normal and 45 abnormal patients. The bone marrow in the healthy adults consisted of a combination of hematopoietic and fatty marrow, which showed age-related dirtribation, that is the component of fatty marrow was increased and the marrow vascularity was decreased with age. Avascular necrosis (AVN) showed a decreased bone marrow signal within an normal appearing femoral head on T1 and T2 -weighted images. In addition, we could see inhomogeneous low signal intensive (31 cases), a ring of low intensive with central normal signal intensity (25 cases), focal low signal intensity (12 case), or a band of low signal intensity (4 cases). MRI findings were abnormal in 10 cases with normal radiographic findings as well as in all the cases with abnormal ones. In conclusion, MRI should be the choice of the imaging modality for the evaluation of early bone marrow changes of AVN

[en] To evaluate the clinical significance of lung ventilation scan using ^99mTc-DTPA in patient with bronchiectasis, we compared the involvement area of bronchogram and lung ventilation scan according to lobar and segmental distribution. There were no correlation between impairment of pulmonary function test and the number of branchiectatic lobe and segment(p>0.5). Lung ventilation scan showed 66.7% of sensitivity, 100% of specificity, and 91.7 g of accuracy according to lobar distribution, and 51.9 of sensitivity, 96.9% of specificity, and 88.9% of accuracy according to segmental distribution. These results suggest that lung ventilation scan can be used as diagnostic tool in patient with bronchiectasis in whom bronchogram is not tolerable.

[en] To evaluate the ultrasonographic findings of the patients with sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis (SEP). Thirteen patients with surgically confirmed sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis were involved in this study. Because of intestinal obstruction, all patients had received operations. Among 13 patients, 12 cases had continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) for 2 months-12 years and 4 months from (mean; 6 years and 10 months), owing to chronic renal failure and one patient had an operation due to variceal bleeding caused by liver cirrhosis. On ultrasonographic examination, all patients showed loculated ascites which were large (n=7) or small (n=6) in amount with multiple separations. The small bowel loops were tethered posteriorly perisaltic movement and covered with the thick membrane. The ultrasonographic of findings of sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis were posteriorly tethered small bowels covered with a thick membrane and loculated ascites with multiple septa. Ultrasonographic examination can detect the thin membrane covering the small bowel loops in the early phase of the disease, therefore ultrasonography would be a helpful modality to diagnose SEP early.