Unknown Case 1 – Lower Extremity Doppler Ultrasound
History: 50 year old male with lower extremity swelling Diagnosis? For the solution, click here.
Non-Traumatic Intracranial (Intracerebral) Hemorrhage – Differential Diagnosis
History: 28 year old patient with end stage renal disease and hypertension presents with a seizure. This young patient had multiple areas of spontaneous, or primary intracranial hemorrhage with an absence of trauma. As indicated in the figure, intracranial (or intracerebral) hemorrhage can occur in different spaces in the head itself, including the subarachnoid space (green […]
Submandibular Space Abscess
History: 50 year old male with mouth pain and swelling. This is a submandibular space abscess. Head and neck anatomy is some of the most complex anatomy in the human body. The submandibular space is superior the hyoid bone, lateral or superficial to the mylohyoid muscle sling, and deep to the platysma muscle. It is […]
Restricted Diffusion – Differential Diagnosis
History: 70 year old male with acute right sided hemiplegia. Many different entities can cause increased signal on diffusion weighted imaging. The differential diagnosis includes acute ischemic stroke, abscess, empyema, epidermoid cyst, lymphoma, intracerebral hematoma, encephalomyelitis, diffuse axonal injury, meningioma, and multiple sclerosis. An excellent article reviewing these entities is found here. The patient from […]
Periventricular White Matter Hypoattenuation – Differential Diagnosis
History: 80 year old male with headache. This is the appearance of periventricular white matter hypoattenuation on CT. In this patient it is due to normal aging effects on the brain. The appearance of periventricular white matter hypoattenuation on CT is nonspecific and the differential diagnosis includes normal aging brain, arteriolosclerosis, multiple sclerosis, acute disseminated […]
Acute Sinusitis
History: 45 year old female with congestion and headache. This is the appearance of acute sinusitis on CT. Sinusitis is inflammation of the sinuses as a result of infection with a virus, bacteria, or fungus. Usually patients do not need imaging for diagnosing sinusitis as it is diagnosed clinically by history and physical exam. However, sinusitis […]
Odontogenic Sinusitis
History: 50 year old man with headache. This is a case of odontogenic sinusitis, which is inflammation in a sinus adjacent to odontogenic infeciton or sinusitis as a result of sinus entry during dental surgery. The differential diagnosis includes sinus disease of other origins such as fungal sinusitis or bacterial superinfection after a viral URI, […]
Periapical Tooth Abscess – The spectrum of apical periodontitis
History: 50 year old man with jaw pain. This is an example of a tooth abscess, or periapical abscess. The lucency in the maxilla indicated by the yellow arrow is somewhat nonspecific and may be secondary to tooth loosening, however, the adjacent maxillary sinus mucosal thickening argues for the case of an abscess. […]
Gallbladder Wall Thickening – Differential Diagnosis
History: 55 year old male with right upper quadrant pain. The normal gallbladder wall should measure 3 mm or less on ultrasound imaging. The differential diagnosis for diffuse gallbladder wall thickening includes cholecystitis, hepatitis, volume overload states such as heart failure, liver failure, and renal failure, hypoproteinemia, portal hypertension, and more rare causes such as […]
Pulmonary Arteriovenous Malformation
History: 50 year old man with cyanosis and chest pain. This is a case of pulmonary arteriovenous malformation, which is an abnormal communication between a pulmonary artery and pulmonary vein. Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations are typically round or oval shaped, and often a feeding artery and draining vein can be visualized. The differential diagnosis for this […]