[Analysis of the diagnostic efficacy of magnetic resonance tomography]

During a preliminary 10-month clinical experience using MRI, 731 patients have been studied, almost 50% for brain and spine pathology. From 62% (skeletal studies) to 73% (brain and spine studies) of the patients underwent MRI after CT or US studies. While 75% of the MRI brain and spine examinations have been performed due to precise clinical indications, respectively 77% and 80% of the examinations at the level of bone joints and soft tissues and body have been selected on the basis of clinical research programs. Three percent of the patients could not complete the examination because of claustrophobia. MRI gave more diagnostic informations than CT or US in 67% (brain and spine studies), 41% (bone joint and soft tissue studies) and 33% (body studies) of the cases. On the contrary MRI has been less diagnostic than CT or US respectively in 9%, 12% and 11% of the cases. Furthermore in 18% of the patients studied for brain or spine pathology, MRI showed lesions not demonstrated by CT. The requests for routine neuroradiologic studies makes it necessary to have at least one MRI unit per 500,000 people.