[Recent advances in imaging in diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis]

Recent advances in imaging have been brought about by the the development of digital imaging modalities. The clinical application of these modalities for tuberculosis can be carried out in various situations, screening, differential diagnosis, examination for disease extend, marker of treatment response and checking the sequela. A digital image processing of contrast adjustment using Fuji Computed Radiography (FCR) produce more favorable chest image than that of spacial frequency enhancement. From our experience FCR proved superior to conventional film-screen system. CT has been considered to be very useful for detection and observation of tuberculosis lesion. Recently thin slice CT and high resolution CT have improved spacial resolution and these modalities are very useful to differentiate peripheral pulmonary nodule. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) completely differs from X-ray examination in terms of image parameter. The histologic resolution of this image is superior to any X-ray examination and Gd-DTPA enhancement will assist the differential diagnosis of nodular lesion. On the contrary, the spacial resolution of this chest imaging is inferior to CT because of respiratory motion. However, MRI application for brain is useful in diagnosis of cerebral tuberculosis. A spiral CT scanning has been developed for clinical use and three dimensional CT (3-D CT) can be obtained by this system.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)