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[en] The authors report their experience of knee articular pathologies studied with MR imaging. Forty patients (36 with and 4 without articular trauma) were examined with both MR imaging and arthroscopy. Arthroscopic findings were correlated with MR results in order to evaluate the accuracy of the latter in detecting meniscal tears. MR images were obtained with a 1.5 T unit and a transmit-receiver surface coil. Spin-echo sequence and, occasionally, fast-scan sequences were used both in the coronal and in the sagittal planes. High resolution MR imaging clearly depicted knee anatomy. As far as meniscal lesions were concerned, the authors employed a grading system to classify intrameniscal signals, as proposed by Lotysch. The preliminary results are encouraging and suggest the use of MR imaging as the first imaging modality for use in knee pathology before arthroscopy is performed

[en] The authors report the observations derived from CT evaluation of 19 cases of lumbosacral conjoined nerve roots; 11 of these have been confirmed by lumbar myelography and/or at surgery. They conclude that CT without intrathecal metrizamide allows the recognition in most cases the presence of conjoined nerve roots and to differentiate them from a herniated disk fragment; this is especially usefull avoid surgical damage of anomalous roots. (orig.)

[en] The authors report their experience with MR imaging in the study of osteosarcoma. Two main elements were evaluated: signal characteristics and loco-regional staging. Seventy-one patients were studied: 65 of them had central long-bone osteosarcoma, and 6 had teleangiectatic long-bone osteosarcoma. T1 - and T2 - weighted spin-echo sequences were employed and all cases were scanned on 3 planes (sagittal, coronal and axial). In 28 patients MR imaging was performed both before and after preoperative chemotherapy. The obtained data were compared to surgical and pathological findings. With the exception of the typical signal patterns of quite-osteoblastic osteosarcoma (which presents with low signal on both T1 - and T2 - weighted sequences), no particular signal features were observed which could help distinguish the different types of osteosarcoma. MR imaging is the method of choice in loco-regional staging for, in the examined patients, it allowed a rational and adequate surgical planning. For this purpose, at least a longitudinal T1 - and an axial T2 - weighted images are required