This study was designed to investigate radiation exposure to a physician performing fluoroscopically guided caudal epidural steroid injections. The prospective study design included 100 consecutive fluoroscopically guided caudal epidural steroid injections performed on patients with radiculitis from either herniated nucleus pulposus or lumbar spinal stenosis. Radiation exposure was monitored wi...

The AutoMicrobic system (Vitek Systems, Inc., Hazelwood, Mo.) is a fully automated, computerized instrument. One of the most thoroughly studied aspects of the system is its ability to identify and quantify of nine most common urinary tract pathogens. The major advantages of the AutoMicrobic system are that the results of urine cultures are available in a fraction of the time required by convent...

Interpretation of cardiac perfusion SPECT images, and the subsequent reporting of results to referring physicians, are sometimes taken to be outside the sphere of the nuclear medicine technologist. However, all personnel involved with nuclear medicine procedures contribute to the timeliness and usefulness of the final report. The goal of this article is to review the principles of scan interpre...

Unstable pelvic fractures are usually associated with high impact energy trauma. As to surgical procedures the most frequently used methods are open reduction and inner fixation (ORIF), the other methods of stabilizing the unstable posterior pelvic ring are percutaneous iliosacral screw fixation under fluoroscopic control and CT-guided percutaneous fixation. The last mentioned procedure elimina...

BACKGROUND Testing coagulation factor activities requires that multiple dilutions be assayed and analyzed to produce a single result. The slope of the line created by plotting measured factor concentration against sample dilution is evaluated to discern the presence of inhibitors giving rise to nonparallelism. Moreover, samples producing results on initial dilution falling outside the analytic ...

The PET procedure involves the administration of short-lived positron emitting radioisotopes to the body. The choice of PET as diagnostic method is increasing and the inclusion of PET systems as part of an imaging center is becoming more widespread. In our PET center, the number of clinical 18F-FDG PET scans has increased almost to 5000 studies per year. The increasing demand of PET studies for...