Lesion Targeted CT-Guided Transgluteal Prostate Biopsy in Combination With Prebiopsy MRI in Patients Without Rectal Access.

With prostate and colorectal malignancies being the most common cancers in men, elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) in patients without rectal access due to prior surgery poses a diagnostic dilemma. We report the first use of CT-guided biopsy in combination with prebiopsy MRI in 2 patients with a clinical suspicion of prostate cancer and no rectal access. In both cases, a diagnostic multiparametric MRI of the prostate was performed to detect and to localize a potential suspicious lesion. The localization served as a cognitive map for guiding needle placement using a CT-guided transgluteal approach.

Role of arteriovenous shunting in venous ulcers--therapeutic implications.

Although the presence of arteriovenous communications in patients with chronic venous ulcers has been confirmed in several studies, their role in the pathogenesis of venous ulcers is still uncertain. They possibly do play an important role in the aetiology of chronic venous insufficiency. There is also substantial evidence to suggest that arteriovenous communications develop as a result of chronic venous hypertension. The question raised in this pilot study was whether the importance of arteriovenous shunts in the genesis of venous ulcer disease is such that their obliteration might lead to long-term healing. This clinical study was also designed to determine whether therapeutic microembolization of nutritive arterial branches to arteriovenous fistulas, found in patients with venous ulcers, facilitates healing of venous ulcers resistant to previous conservative and/or classical surgical treatment. From 1997 to 1999, 34 patients (22 women and 14 men, mean age 51.3 years) with chronic venous ulcer resistant to classical treatment were included in the study. Arteriovenous shunting was demonstrated by digital subtraction angiography in 31 patients (31/34 = 91%). The embolization procedure of muscular arterial branches feeding the arteriovenous shunts with microspirals and microparticles led to ulcer healing in 13 patients (13/31). The results suggest that the role of arteriovenous shunting in chronic venous ulceration resistant to classical treatment is more important than previously suggested, and that their microembolization might lead to complete healing.

Three-dimensional ultrasonography for the evaluation of atherosclerotic stenoses of the carotid trunk.

Three-dimensional ultrasonography is a significant novelty in neurosonology as it offers the possibility of an even more successful evaluation of atherosclerotic stenoses of the carotid trunk than previous ultrasonographic investigations. In 37 patients with signs of transitory ischemic attack and in 5 patients with reversible ischemic neurologic deficit we compared the findings of three-dimensional ultrasonography of carotid arteries on the neck with those of three-dimensional CT angiography. In 20 of these patients in which carotid thrombendarterectomy had been carried out, the findings of both diagnostic methods were also compared with the angiographic and operative findings. In 2 out of the total of 42 compared findings of three-dimensional ultrasonography, three-dimensional CT angiography and angiography of the carotid trunk, we assessed a difference in the evaluation of the degree of carotid stenosis while all other findings were in accordance as regards the evaluation of the degree of stenosis and plaque analysis. Of 20 operative findings, one showed insignificant deviations from the findings of both diagnostic methods. It is our opinion that three-dimensional ultrasonography is a reliable diagnostic method in evaluating atherosclerotic stenoses of carotid arteries. Every subtotal stenosis or internal carotid artery occlusion established by three-dimensional ultrasonography must be compared with three-dimensional CT angiography or classic angiography due to the objective possibility of false ultrasonographic interpretation and the significance of carotid thrombendarterectomy.