Institutional review board approval and informed consent were obtained for this HIPAA-compliant study, whose purpose was to prospectively evaluate the use of a dual-contrast mechanism in conjunction with an iron oxide blood pool contrast agent, ferumoxytol, to depict deep venous thrombosis (DVT). Nine patients with lower extremity DVT detected with duplex ultrasonography (US) were imaged with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and ferumoxytol. Three techniques, including precontrast two-dimensional time-of-flight (TOF) imaging, ferumoxytol-enhanced bright-blood imaging, and ferumoxytol-enhanced dark-blood imaging, were applied. Image quality for precontrast and ferumoxytol-enhanced images was analyzed by using a four-point scale. Thrombus was depicted as a filling defect within the blood pool on bright-blood images and as bright tissue that appeared highly contrasted against a dark background on dark-blood images. Image quality of ferumoxytol-enhanced images was uniformly superior to that of precontrast TOF images (P = .007). Compared with precontrast TOF images, ferumoxytol-enhanced bright-blood images had higher contrast-to-noise ratios (CNRs) between thrombus and blood (P = .051), whereas ferumoxytol-enhanced dark-blood images showed significantly higher CNRs between thrombus and surrounding muscle (P = .008). Ferumoxytol-enhanced MR imaging can depict DVT with a dual-contrast mechanism and show the extent of thrombus.

Cardiac lipomas are uncommon, usually asymptomatic benign primary tumors of the heart that may incidentally be discovered during computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Although the finding of a low-attenuation mass with density similar to fat on CT is pathognomonic, the MRI appearances of fatty cardiac masses are variable depending on the sequences employed. The MRI findings of 4 patients with cardiac lipomas or lipomatous hypertrophy of the interatrial septum are presented. All patients had lesions with characteristic low-signal-intensity margins and high central signal intensity on "bright-blood" balanced gradient-echo cardiac MRI sequences with very low repetition and echo times. It is proposed that this appearance results from intravoxel phase cancellation effects occurring at the fat/tissue interface and is sufficiently characteristic to obviate the need for confirmatory CT.

133Xenon ventilation scintigraphy indicated the presence of significant interlobar collateral ventilation in patients with severe emphysema that may have major relevance to these novel alternative techniques to lung volume reduction surgery. 133Xenon scintigraphy can be used in the evaluation of severe emphysema before and after novel therapeutic interventions.

Transient left ventricular apical hypokinesis results in a typical ampullary shape and has been described as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TCM). We report a case of TCM with the rare complication of left ventricular thrombus formation. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging aided the diagnosis by characterizing the non-enhancing mass and evaluating the surrounding myocardium for scarring.

Musculoskeletal ultrasound has utility as a first-line screening modality in the evaluation of soft tissue masses. The sonographic appearances of cysts or lipomas may be sufficient to obviate the need for further imaging. For other complex cystic or solid masses, ultrasound is an inexpensive, widely available imaging modality that can evaluate lesion vascularity, guide diagnostic and therapeutic aspiration or biopsy procedures, and be used for follow-up examinations to determine response to therapeutic interventions.