1/Hungry for a good case?! Radiologists love imaging findings that look like food—this case takes it to the next level
A🧵about an interesting case that really brought the phrase “watching what you eat” home #medtwitter#radres#FOAMed#FOAMrad#neurorad#Meded#radiology#HNrad
2/Pt was eating dinner, suddenly started coughing & was in respiratory distress. A tubular object was seen in the trachea on CT—I jokingly asked if he had aspirated a worm! It looked almost like a curly straw—but it would be hard to aspirate that!
3/Our initial thought was that it was pasta—there are many types of pasta that are tubular, and pasta can look very dense on CT. We each took turns guessing the type of pasta—there were guesses of ziti, penne, rigatoni and macaroni
4/But as my mom once said, it’s not easy eating greens! This was asparagus. And we were actually able to find a paper on asparagus CT imaging. Asparagus has different appearances depending its fibrous content. Not surprisingly—the one aspirated was max fibrous!
And now you'll never have guess about asparagus!
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1/The 90s called & wants its carotid imaging back!
It’s been 30 years--why are you still just quoting NASCET?
Do you feel vulnerable when it comes to identifying plaque vulnerability?
Here’s a thread to help you identify high risk plaques with carotid plaque imaging
2/Everyone knows the NASCET criteria:
If the patient is symptomatic & the greatest stenosis from the plaque is >70% of the diameter of normal distal lumen, patient will likely benefit from carotid endarterectomy.
But that doesn’t mean the remaining patients are just fine!
3/Yes, carotid plaques resulting in high grade stenosis are high risk.
But assuming that stenosis is the only mechanism by which a carotid plaque is high risk is like assuming that the only way to kill someone is by strangulation.
1/I always say you can tell a bad read on a spine MR if it doesn’t talk about lateral recesses.
What will I think when I see your read? Do you rate lateral recess stenosis?
Here’s a thread on lateral recess anatomy & a grading system for lateral recess stenosis
2/First anatomy.
Thecal sac is like a highway, carrying the nerve roots down the lumbar spine.
Lateral recess is part of the lateral lumbar canal, which is essentially the exit for spinal nerve roots to get off the thecal sac highway & head out into the rest of the body
3/Exits have 3 main parts.
First is the deceleration lane, where the car slows down as it starts the process of exiting.
Then there is the off ramp itself, and this leads into the service road which takes the car to the roads that it needs to get to its destination
3/At its most basic, you can think of the PPF as a room with 4 doors opening to each of these regions: one posteriorly to the skullbase, one medially to the nasal cavity, one laterally to the infratemporal fossa, and one anteriorly to the orbit