Open AccessMR imaging of Crohn's disease: The experience at the Royal Melbourne Hospital
Author(s) -
Perry Chris
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
radiographer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.484
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 2051-3909
pISSN - 0033-8273
DOI - 10.1002/j.2051-3909.2005.tb00022.x
Subject(s) - magnetic resonance imaging , medicine , crohn's disease , image quality , radiology , inflammatory bowel disease , electromagnetic coil , inflammatory bowel diseases , quality (philosophy) , disease , medical physics , artificial intelligence , pathology , image (mathematics) , computer science , engineering , physics , quantum mechanics , electrical engineering
Until recently, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has had little to offer the physician or surgeon in the area of small bowel gastro‐intestinal (GI) imaging. Long scan times leading to motion artifacts and poor image quality as well as a lack of good quality imaging coils have all contributed to this fact. However, in the last 5–10 years, these problems have been overcome by the creation of very fast sequences enabling breath‐hold scan times, as well as increases in surface coil technology (phased‐array abdominal coils) to increase signal‐to‐noise ratio and image quality. In the light of these new advances, MRI is being used increasingly to aid in the diagnosis of certain GI tract diseases. This paper looks at the ability of MRI to diagnose the chronic inflammatory bowel condition known as Crohn's disease, with a discussion on the experience of our department to date.