Dear MRI Insider,
Little by little, the picture is becoming clearer on gadolinium accumulation in the brain. The complex nature of the topic means that progress was never going to be rapid here, but at least the global MRI community now appears to be moving in the right direction.
Researchers from Heidelberg and Essen, Germany, think they've made an important breakthrough by developing a technique for monitoring precisely how gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) enter the brain via the glymphatic pathway. This aspect has been overlooked in the past, and their findings may have major clinical implications, the study authors emphasize. Get the full story.
At last week's RSNA meeting, investigators from the U.S. and Switzerland explained how they've observed significantly higher signal intensities in different brain regions depending on whether patients received linear or macrocyclic GBCAs for MRI scans. Their results confirm previous reports of increased signal intensity after linear GBCA application in the dentate nucleus and globus pallidus but not after macrocyclic GBCAs. Learn more.
Meanwhile, another German study published last month in Radiology looked at how different GBCAs affect retention in the brain. It also shed new light on the differences between linear and macrocyclic GBCAs with respect to gadolinium retention. For the details, click here.
Italian researchers have been keeping busy too. A team from Rome has analyzed adverse reactions to GBCAs among 1,088 patients who underwent MRI scans between March 2017 and March 2018. Find out more.
Lung cancer screening also was a hot topic at RSNA 2018, and new research found that MRI can play a role in this area. In a multinational study presented in Chicago, a key benefit of MRI was the nearly fivefold reduction of false-positive screens relative to CT. Learn more.
Last but not least, French investigators have shown how MRI can predict outcomes in complex cases of soft-tissue sarcomas. Get the details here.
This letter features only a handful of the articles posted over the past few weeks in the MRI Community. Please scroll through the full list of our coverage below.
