| Theme |
Urgent colonoscopy for decision of diagnosis and treatment |
| Title |
Usefulness of MDCT prior to emergency colonoscopy |
| Author |
Michio Yamasaki |
Department of Radiology, Shiga University of Medical Science |
| Author |
Akira Furukawa |
Department of Radiology, Shiga University of Medical Science |
| Author |
Kiyoshi Murata |
Department of Radiology, Shiga University of Medical Science |
| Author |
Katsuji Imoto |
Department of Radiology, Kouga Public Hospital |
| Author |
Tsutomu Sakamoto |
Department of Radiology, Kouga Public Hospital |
| [ Summary ] |
Emergency colonoscopy is mainly indicated for patients with lower gastrointestinal hemorrhage or other various acute abdominal symptoms, however in severe situations, emergency unprepped procedures are often difficult for treatment of massive hemorrhage. Multi-detector-row computed tomography (MDCT) allows rapid, cost-effective evaluation of such patients and it is no exaggeration to say that MDCT is the modality of first choice for the screening of patients with acute abdominal symptoms.
MDCT is particularly valuable for detection and characterization of many inflammatory conditions of the colon, including diverticulitis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, ischemic colitis, radiation colitis, pseudomembranous colitis and other forms of infectious colitis. In this paper, illustrative cases and various imaging features of such conditions are reviewed, including attenuation pattern of bowel wall thickening to degree of bowel wall thickening to circumferential symmetric thickening versus asymmetric thickening to focal, segmental, or diffuse involvement to as well as associated perienteric abnormalities. |