[Clinical usefulness of three-D cerebral mensional MR imaging in the diagnosis of medullary venous malformation].
Medullary venous malformation (MVM) is one of the most common vascular malformations encountered pathologically. In fact, it is generally discovered incidentally during the workup of other disorders. In 18 cases (19 lesions) of MVM, we evaluated retrospectively the diagnostic value of CT and MRI. We set four evaluations, excellent, good, fair and poor, to assess the diagnostic value of each imaging method. Contrast enhanced CT and pre-contrast MRI could detect the abnormality in 80% of the cases, but it was difficult to demonstrate the umbrella like medullary vein. Contrast enhanced MRI showed the umbrella sign in 60%. Images reformated with three-dimensional (3-D) MR imaging were better able to demonstrate this structure. Medullary vein collection, drainage into a single central vein and termination into a superficial cortical vein or a dural sinus were clearly demonstrated in all cases. Thus, all cases were diagnosed correctly as MVM. Contrast enhanced 3-D MR imaging was superior to other imaging techniques except angiography.
Uchida
R
R
Department of Radiology, Yamagata University School of Medicine.
Hosoya
T
T
Yamaguchi
K
K
Watanabe
N
N
Nagahata
M
M
Haku
T
T
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002550:Cerebral Veins / Q000002:abnormalities* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D002538:Intracranial Arteriovenous Malformations; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed