Pelvic floor failure is a common disorder that can seriously jeopardize a woman's quality of life by causing urinary and fecal incontinence, difficult defecation, and pelvic pain. Multiple congenital and acquired risk factors are associated with pelvic floor failure, including altered collagen metabolism, female sex, vaginal delivery, menopause, and advanced age. A complex variety of fascial and muscular lesions that range from stretching, insertion detachment, denervation atrophy, and combinations of pelvic floor relaxation to pelvic organ prolapse may manifest in a single patient. Thorough preoperative assessment of pelvic floor failure is necessary to reduce the rate of relapse, which is reported to be as high as 30%. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the pelvic floor is a two-step process that includes analysis of anatomic damage on axial fast spin-echo (FSE) T2-weighted images and functional evaluation using sagittal dynamic single-shot T2-weighted sequences during straining and defecation. This article presents high-resolution FSE T2-weighted MR images that permit detailed assessment of anatomic lesions and briefly describes pelvic floor pathophysiology, associated clinical symptoms, and patterns of dysfunction seen with dynamic MR imaging sequences. MR imaging is a powerful tool that enables radiologists to comprehensively evaluate pelvic anatomic and functional abnormalities, thus helping surgeons provide appropriate treatment and avoid repeat operations.

We report a case of localized Castleman's disease of mesentery, studied with sonography, that was incidentally detected as an abdominal mass in a patient with Graves' disease. Its lymphatic nature and mesenteric origin was indicated preoperatively on the basis of gray-scale and color Doppler sonographic features.

Mood disorders (MD) are important and frequent psychiatric illness. The management of patients affected by these conditions represents an important factor of disability as well as a significant social and economic burden. The "in-vivo" studies can help researchers to understand the first developmental events of the pathology and to identify the molecular and non-molecular targets of therapies. However, they have strong limitations due to the fact that human brain circuitry can not be reproduced in animal models. In addition, these neural pathways are difficult to be selectively studied with the modern imaging (such as Magnetic Resonance and Positron Emitted Tomography/Computed Tomography) and non-imaging (such as electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, transcranial magnetic stimulation and evoked potentials) methods. In comparison with other methods, the "in-vivo" imaging investigations have higher temporal and spatial resolution compared to the "in-vivo" non-imaging techniques. All these factors make difficult to fully understand the aetiology and pathophysiology of these disorders, and consequently hinder the analysis of the effects of pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies, which have been demonstrated effective in clinical settings. In this review, we will focus our attention on the current state of the art of imaging in the assessment of treatment efficacy in MD. We will analyse briefly the actual classification of MD; then we will focus on the "in vivo" imaging methods used in research and clinical activity, the current knowledge about the neural models at the base of MD. Finally the last part of the review will focus on the analysis of the main markers of response to treatment.

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