Journal Top Ten, COLUMNS-Asbestos, August 2004

1 TITLE:"Asbestos-Related Pleural Disease: Value of Dedicated Magnetic Resonance Imaging Techniques."

SUMMARY: The authors sought to compare respiratory-gated high-spatial resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and radial MRI with ultra-short echo times with computed tomography (CT) in the diagnosis of asbestos-related pleural disease. Twenty-one patients with confirmed long-term asbestos exposure were examined with a CT and a 1.5 T MR unit. High resolution respiratory-gated T2w turbo-spin-echo (TSE), breath-hold T1w TSE and contrast-enhanced fat-suppressed breath-hold T1w TSE images with an inplane resolution of less than 1 mm were acquired. High resolution MR sequences and radial MRI achieve a comparable …