Index by author

This case series presents 18 patients with primary and secondary malignant lacrimal sac and nasolacrimal duct tumors and their pattern of tumor spread. Squamous cell carcinoma was the most common histology and, in 15/18 patients tumor involved both the lacrimal sac and duct at the time of diagnosis. In 11/16 patients on CT, the nasolacrimal bony canal was smoothly expanded without erosive changes. Tumor was not observed solely within the nasolacrimal duct in any patient. Only 1 patient presented with nodal metastasis and there was no intracranial tumor extension or perineural tumor spread. The authors conclude that malignant lacrimal sac and nasolacrimal duct tumors tend to expand the nasolacrimal bony canal, rather than erode it. CT was superior to MR imaging in characterizing expansion versus erosion of the nasolacrimal bony canal.

The authors evaluated multiple parameters of reduced-FOV DTI to optimize image quality. Fifteen healthy individuals underwent cervical spinal cord 3T MRI, including an anatomic 3D Multi-Echo Recombined Gradient Echo, high-resolution full-FOV DTI with a NEX of 3 and 20 diffusion gradient directions, and 5 sets of reduced-FOV DTIs differently balanced in terms of NEX/number of diffusion gradient directions. Qualitatively, reduced-FOV DTI sequences with a NEX of >5 were significantly better rated than the full-FOV DTI and the reduced-FOV DTI with low NEX (N=3) and a high number of diffusion gradient directions (D=20). Quantitatively, the best trade-off was reached by the reduced-FOV DTI with a NEX of 9 and 9 diffusion gradient directions. They conclude that the best compromise was obtained with a NEX of 9 and 9 diffusion gradient directions, which emphasizes the need for increasing the NEX at the expense of the number of diffusion gradient directions for spinal cord DTI, unlike brain imaging.