The last decade or two have witnessed a plethora of newer chemotherapy drugs being approved for treating cancer, most of which have been approved based on clinical trials using the RECIST 1.1 (or the older RECIST) criteria to demonstrate efficacy of treatment and prolongation of disease-free survival. However, how accurate are the RECIST 1.1 criteria …
Continue reading How accurate is RECIST 1.1 for assessing tumor response?
Dr Ravi Ramakantan took a fantastic film reading session with some classic radiographs on display for description and learning. We lay down the descriptions for everyone to learn from. Case 1: These are frontal and lateral radiographs of the upper humerus and shoulder of an immature skeleton. (How do we tell which is lateral view …
Radiology has a major role to play in baseline assessment of pancreatic adenocarcinoma, with use of a dedicated pancreatic CT protocol and a dedicated pancreatic reporting template recommended by all major radiology societies. The current limitation of our imaging unfortunately is that we predominantly focus only on surgical 'resectability' of the pancreatic tumor, viz classifying …
Continue reading CT Assessment of ‘Resectability’ of Pancreatic Cancer: Can we do better?
Contrast-induced nephropathy (CIN) is traditionally defined as a 25% or a 0.5mg/dL increase in serum creatinine value over the baseline at 48-72 hours after contrast administration. Various prophylactic measures including IV hydration using NS or sodium bicarbonate or administering N-acetylcysteine, amongst others, are often used to try and prevent CIN in at risk patients receiving …
Continue reading Prophylaxis for contrast-induced nephropathy: Does anything work?
This is a frontal chest radiograph (do not state AP or PA in exams nor talk about well-centralized or rotated unless you are prepared for the viva to go there!). There is a well-defined homogeneous 5x3 cm vertically oval soft tissue lesion (in practice, prefer stating ‘lesion’ or ‘shadow’ over ‘mass’, especially for benign findings, …
Continue reading The Cervicothoracic sign: Dr Ravi Ramakantan’s film reading session
I did my medical school and radiology residency from India, but was also fortunate to spend three years in the US for subspecialty training in various clinical fellowships. I believe these amazing experiences in my formative years across both the systems made me a more complete radiologist. If I compare the residency training in both …
History: Patient with cervical carcinoma admitted in the ICU with urosepsis. DESCRIPTION: This is a frontal chest radiograph. (As a routine, prefer to say frontal rather than AP or PA as then the discussion could go tangentially!.. In this case of course this is a supine AP film as it is an ICU patient). The …
Continue reading ICU Chest X-ray: Dr Ravi Ramakantan’s film reading session
On CT chest, many pathologies can present with the same radiological findings. Hence a systematic approach is required to narrow down the differential diagnosis, and make appropriate recommendations. Dr Jankharia used various cases to discuss the approach to chest imaging. Here are few representative examples. 1. Approach to solitary pulmonary nodule Solitary pulmonary nodule (SPN) is …
Continue reading Chest Imaging I: Dr Bhavin Jankharia’s talk
Continuing from the previous blog on What to read for radiology residency, we will now discuss various online learning resources for the radiologist. Radiology is a vast branch and is evolving continuously. To be relevant, radiologists need to constantly update themselves with the recent advances in the field and there is no better place than …
Continue reading Online Learning Resources for the Radiologist
Congratulations everyone on clearing the FRCR 2A! Part 2B is the last hurdle of the long and arduous journey before the inscription of golden words- FRCR to your name. After our earlier blogs on how to prepare for FRCR part 1 and part 2A, we will talk about tips and tricks to clear part 2B …
Continue reading A to Z of FRCR 2B: How to Prepare and What to Read
Cafe Roentgen 