SHOULDER

Above are MRI images of the most common shoulder injury which is rotator cuff tears. Shoulder pain is a common complaint by patients and it can be due to a variety of causes. The major cause of shoulder pain in patients older than 40 years of age is rotator cuff impingement and tears. MRI has played an important role as a noninvasive test for determining which patients may benefit from surgery.

PELVIS

Below is a T1 weighted coronal MRI image of the hips. The yellow arrow is pointing to the pathology in the left femoral head/hip joint known as avascular necrosis(AVN). Avascular necrosis is a disease where the blood supply to the bone is disrupted causing loss of bone integrity and eventual collapse of the bone. The cause is often never identified, but factors that have been found to lead to avascular necrosis are trauma, use of steroids, alcohol abuse, damage from radiation, high blood pressure, and sickle cell anemia. Diagnoses are usually made with MRI imaging. AVN in the hip such as in this picture could be treated by the patient having a total hip replacement.

ABDOMEN

The liver is a common site of metastatic disease. The portal vein drains the abdominal viscera and is presumably the conduit for metastases from tumors of the colon and rectum, stomach, pancreas, and small intestine. Breast cancer commonly spreads to the the liver as do lung cancer and lymphoma. To the right are CT images of the abdomen showing liver metastases.