what can be diagnosed by mri
MRI stands for magnetic resonance imaging
By requesting an MRI, doctors can see and examine more details of your body parts.
But what are the applications of MRI in medicine?
What problems will MRI diagnose for the doctor?
Read more to get the answers to the above questions and come to MRI without stress and worry.
MRI function
The MRI system uses a very large magnet to create a magnetic field. With these waves, tissue imaging is performed and processed and recorded in a computer system.
In short, magnetic waves, in addition to radio waves, create an image that is processed, and recorded on a particular computer system, providing the physician with a more accurate and detailed image.
The MRI machine with which your photo is to be taken will be a large cylindrical enclosure surrounded by a magnet, which creates a large magnetic field.
By creating this magnetic field for a short time, the water molecules in the cells of your body change and align in terms of alignment.
With the alignment of these molecules, radio waves will cause weak signals from these molecules, these weak signals will be received and processed by a computer processing system and will be recorded as an image.
It will be that during a very safe and non-invasive process, accurate images are recorded.
Interestingly, MRI will be able to produce and edit three-dimensional images of body parts
Why MRI?
MRI will be a good option for high-resolution images of body parts and skeletons.
With these accurate images, the doctor can make a correct diagnosis and can better determine the treatment plan and protocol.
Doctors can use MRI in different departments. Depending on where the MRI is used, important diagnoses can be made.
In the following, we will deal with the types of diagnoses that will be possible with MRI images in detail.
Doctors use MRI to diagnose disorders and diseases in which parts of the body?
- Brain and spinal cord (central nervous system or CNS)
- Cardiovascular
- Liver and bile ducts
- The spleen
- Pancreas
- Pelvic organs:
- Kidneys
- Skeletal system (bones and joints)
- Breast
In the following, we will say in more detail what MRI is able to detect in the above fields.
How does MRI help to diagnose disorders of the central nervous system?
Physicians routinely use MRI to identify, diagnose, and follow up on treatment for brain and spinal cord disorders.
In fact, there are vascular clots in the brain that are congenitally present with strokes at an early age.
Doctors get a lot of help from MRI to diagnose MS. MS will be characterized by a series of plaques that are seen on MRI and have specific temporal and spatial criteria.
- Eye diseases
- Internal ear disorders
- Brain and spinal cord tumors
- A closer look at brain damage after trauma to the skull
- Strokes
With the advancement of technology, a unique type of imaging has been created called functional MRI
This technology is used to measure and evaluate brain function
Images of blood flow are recorded in different parts of the brain, so that the doctor can understand which area of the brain is most active, that means, the increase in blood flow in each part is interpreted as the increase in activity in that part of the brain. So your doctor can evaluate by functional MRI which part of your brain becomes more active as you perform each task and behavior.
For example, if surgery is to be performed on brain tissue, physicians will use functional MRI to identify areas of a person's brain tissue that are related to speech, movement, and so on.
Physicians can also use Brain functional MRI in the following two cases:
Alzheimer's disease
Careful examination of injuries due to trauma to the brain
Does MRI help diagnose disorders of the cardiovascular system?
Physicians for more accurate assessments of heart:
- Accurate determination of the size and function of the ventricles of the heart
- Determining the thickness of the heart walls
- Observe the wall movements of the heart
Assessing, evaluating, and determining the extent of heart damage after a heart attack or after heart disease or disorders may lead to MRI.
Also for items below they will get help from MRI:
- Evaluation of vascular wall inflammation
- Investigation of structural problems in the large aortic artery
- Examination of vascular aneurysms
- And sometimes determination and examination of occlusion of blood vessels
How does MRI help to diagnose breast disorders?
Mammography cannot provide an accurate and acceptable picture of young women's breasts
Young women have young, dense breast tissue, and ultrasound is commonly used to examine their breasts.
Today, MRI can be used instead of ultrasound
In the following cases, MRI of the breast will be helpful:
- Young women and girls with dense breasts (in these women MRI is preferable to mammography)
- Examination of silicone breast prostheses and examination for the presence or absence of prosthetic leakage
- Determining how advanced breast cancer is
- Evaluation of breast tumor spread and progression
- examination of marginal breast tumors
- Breast examinations of girls and young women, especially those with a history of related family cancers
In breast MRI, it is possible to take pictures of both breasts at the same time.
It is also possible for a doctor to look at the breast MRI, in addition to the breast tissue, lungs and armpits.
Breast MRI is very helpful in differentiating breast fat masses from other breast masses.
If more specific assessments are needed, contrast injections, a type of colored liquid, help to make the examinations more specific.
If the doctor wants to assess the shape, margins, and size of the breast tumor or the size of the tumor, he or she will use breast MRI with contrast.
The contrast or dye used in MRI is gadolinium, which is injected through a vein in the hand.
It is said that in the diagnosis of tumor and breast cancer, MRI has the highest sensitivity in diagnosis.
Also, if the findings of breast ultrasound and mammography are incomplete, MRI will be used for more detailed examinations.
Another thing about breast MRI is that if a person with a breast tumor is going to have a surgery, he or she will be asked for a dynamic breast MRI before surgery. This dynamic MRI must be done by contrast injection, the contrast injection will determine the extent of the tumor spread and the extent of involvement of the nearby and axillary lymph nodes.
This information will play an important role in determining the overall treatment plan and chemotherapy of breast cancer.
If there are metastatic tumors in a woman's body but the origin of the primary tumor is unknown, breast MRI will be very helpful.
If a person has a tumor or breast cancer and has had breast surgery, the best method of imaging for further examination will be a breast MRI.
The following people are also told that in case of any clinical doubt, the preferred method of examination is breast MRI:
People at risk for breast cancer, such as those with a positive family history.
People who have a history of receiving radiation to the head and neck, such as people who have received radiotherapy for lymphoma or people who have received radiation for alopecia before.
If a woman has a breast prosthesis, breast MRI will be the preferred method of examination if there is any suspicion of a breast tumor. It is said that in these women, even the preferred method of annual examination will be MRI.
In general, MRI will assess changes in breast tissue and the characteristics of different cysts.
The only weakness of breast MRI is in diagnosing calcifications or calcium deposits in the breast. Mammography will be the preferred method of examining breast calcifications.
What skeletal disorders does MRI help diagnose?
- Evaluation of problems in intervertebral discs
- A closer examination of bone infections (osteomyelitis doctors
- Evaluation of tendon ruptures
- Evaluation of problems and rupture in cartilage
- Diagnostic evaluations of bone, cartilage and soft tissue tumors of the skeletal system (muscle tumors)
MRI also has a special place in the examination of the joints and soft tissues around as well as the bone marrow.
It is interesting to note that X-rays may not show some bone fractures in some cases, but in these cases the doctor may find out by MRI that there is a suspicious condition in the soft tissue around the bone.
MRI has several positive features in the skeletal system:
- It is possible in MRI that the image can be recorded from several directions at the same time without the need for the patient to move and change multiple positions.
- On MRI, it is possible for the bone marrow to be seen and examined
- MRI is able to provide high quality images of muscles and tendons
How MRI can help diagnose abdominal and pelvic disorders?
Organs located in the abdomen and pelvis, such as the liver, spleen, pancreas, bladder, and all other parts and details in the abdomen and pelvis will be examined by MRI.
If you are pregnant, you should tell your doctor before having abdominal and pelvic ARMs.
MRI is limited in examining hollow organs such as the stomach and intestines
However, the information obtained through MRI of your abdominal and pelvic organs is preferable to the data provided by CT scan.
Six hours of complete fasting and twenty-four to forty-eight hours of abstinence from heavy fatty foods before abdominal and pelvic MRI are required.
Also, twenty-four hours before your MRI, you should not take iron tablets or iron supplements as this will reduce the quality of the images.
Abdominal and pelvic tumors are well measured and evaluated by MRI.