3 "Must Know" Emergency CT Diagnoses

To whet your appetite for our upcoming Emergency Radiology Course - which you can watch online for just $25 - I thought I'd share three classic conditions that anyone working in the ER should be able to diagnose on CT. 

Appendicitis

The left hand coronal CT image shows a blind ending tubular structure in the right iliac fossa with a calcified rounded density at its base. This a fairly classic appearance of appendicitis with an appendicolith. While the appendix is mildly distended in this case, there is only minimal inflammatory stranding and no suggestion of perforation or abscess formation. You can read more and see other case examples here.

Pulmonary Embolism

The center axial image from a CT pulmonary angiogram shows a rounded filling defect occluding the left lower lobe pulmonary artery origin. Learning how to track the pulmonary arteries on a CTPA and detect thrombus like this one is a very handy skill. Our pulmonary embolism article has plenty of cases that you can practice on.

Hemorrhagic Stroke - Hypertensive

The right hand axial image of the brain shows a sizable hyperdense region within the left basal ganglia (the lentiform nucleus) consistent with acute intracerebral hemorrhage. This is a classic location for a hemorrhagic stroke secondary to hypertension. This should not be confused with hemorrhagic trasnformation of an ischemic stroke which is a separate entity. Below is Frank Gaillard's Radiology Channel video which covers this topic really well. 

      

 

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Publication date: 22nd Feb 2015 00:32 UTC

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