Severe diffuse hypoplasia of the aorta associated with multiple vascular abnormalities.

Hypoplasia of the thoracic and abdominal aorta is an extremely rare vascular pathology. The most common clinical manifestation is severe uncontrolled hypertension in adolescents and young adults. Medical treatment alone can decrease blood pressure, but often very high doses of antihypertensive drugs are needed. When hypertension is refractory to the antihypertensive medications, surgical revascularization is considered as the treatment of choice. We report the case of a severe and diffuse hypoplasia of the aorta, beginning with the aortic isthmus, to the aortic bifurcation, associated with an aberrant celiac trunk and superior mesenteric artery, and with other multiple vascular abnormalities. Unlikely, the only manifestation of this extensive vascular malformation was medicamentously controllable hypertension. To our knowledge, this severe vascular anomaly, with such a minimal clinical manifestation, has not been previously described in the English literature.

Rectal cancer: possibilities of MRI in detection of local recurrence.

Treatment of rectal cancer, which includes periodic evaluations, may lead to earlier identification of recurrent local infiltration. Differentiation between local recurrence and other post radiation changes is frequently rather difficult. Pelvic MR examination was performed in 30 patients (20 men, 10 women) at the Institute of oncology, Sremska Kamenica. All patients underwent surgical resection of rectal cancer at the same institution. Preoperative or postoperative radiation therapy was administrated in 29 patients (93%). Criteria for detection of local recurrent tumours were based on morphologic changes, such as the presence of tumour inflltration, size increase of the mass and the change of the mass shape. Recurrent tumor inflitration was detected in 50% patients. Tumours of low differentiation histological type was predominantly found within 10 months after surgery, while moderately differentiated and high differentiated types were detected within 20 months and after 20 months after resection, respectively. Pelvic MR examination represents important diagnostic modality for recurrent rectal cancer identification.

[Current diagnostic trends in radiology].

Since the discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Röentgen at the end of the 19th century, diagnostic imaging techniques have been continously improved by technological advances, bringing radiological diagnosis into the very center of modern medicine. Nowadays, it is hard to imagine therapy planning without previous radiological examination. Great advances in the field of computer technology have been accompanied by development of radiological techniques, and today they include not only morphological and anatomical, but also dynamic, functional and molecular imaging. This paper is an overview of new and improved radiological techniques and their implementation.