OBJECTIVE This study was designed to investigate the effect of administration of warmed contrast material (CM) on the bolus geometry and enhancement as depicted on coronary CT angiography. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 64 patients (42 men, 22 women; mean age, 56 years) were randomly divided into two groups. Group 1 included 32 patients administered CM (Omnipaque [Iohexol] 350 mg I/ mL; Nyc...

BACKGROUND Cancer-related bladder spasms may be a rare but severe symptom of bladder or metastatic cancer or its related treatments. Various treatments described in the literature include systemic medications, intravesical or epidural medications, or even sacral neurolectomies. OBJECTIVE We present 3 patients who have suffered from bladder spasm either from invasion of the bladder wall by tum...

To determine if radiocontrast impairs vascular relaxation of the renal artery, segments (4-5 mm in length) of canine renal artery were suspended in vitro in organ chambers to measure isometric force (95% O2/5% CO2, at 37 C). Arterial segments with and without endothelium were placed at the optimal point of their length-tension relation and incubated with 10 microM indomethacin to prevent synthe...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the accuracy of placement of epidural injections using the lumbar and caudal approaches. To identify which factors, if any, predicted successful placement. METHODS 200 consecutive patients referred to a pain clinic for an epidural injection of steroid were randomly allocated to one of two groups. Group L had a lumbar approach to the epidural space and group C a cauda...

Breast surgeons usually mark the specimen of a wide excision of a breast cancer with sutures (e.g. short-superior, long-lateral and double-deep), so the pathologist may orientate it and identify which margins of excision are close to, or involved with the cancer. When an impalpable, radiologically detected lesion is excised, a specimen radiograph is taken to ascertain the position of the suspic...

To the Editor: Iohexol is regarded as an accurate filtration marker for measuring GFR. Recently, Soveri et al concluded that plasma clearance of iohexol could be considered a valid alternative to the gold standard, urinary clearance of inulin. Because inulin urinary clearance is cumbersome and costly, iohexol and iothalamate clearance have become popular in Europe and the United States, respect...

OBJECTIVE To assess the feasibility of computationally simulating intracoronary blood flow based on real coronary artery geometry and to graphically depict various mechanical characteristics of this flow. METHODS Explanted fresh pig hearts were fixed using a continuous perfusion of 4% formaldehyde at physiological pressures. Omnipaque dye added to lead rubber solution was titrated to an optim...

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES Contrast-enhanced digital mammography and digital breast tomosynthesis are two imaging techniques that attempt to increase malignant breast lesion conspicuity. The combination of these into a single technique, contrast-enhanced digital breast tomosynthesis (CE-DBT), could potentially integrate the strengths of both. The objectives of this study were to assess the clinic...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To determine if the vasodilatory response to the intracoronary injection of ionic and nonionic contrast media in intact pigs is dependent on nitric oxide (NO). The mechanisms responsible for inducing the increase in coronary blood flow in response to the intracoronary injection of contrast media during angiography are still not entirely understood. There is evidence to suggest ...

We report a facile approach to forming dendrimer-stabilized gold nanoparticles (Au DSNPs) through the use of amine-terminated fifth-generation poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers modified by diatrizoic acid (G5.NH(2)-DTA) as stabilizers for enhanced computed tomography (CT) imaging applications. In this study, by simply mixing G5.NH(2)-DTA dendrimers with gold salt in aqueous solution at room t...