[New developments in neuroradiologic diagnosis. Indications for MRI and PET--advances in functional imaging]

In the field of neuroradiology in particular, a number of special indications have been identified for which the new generation of imaging procedures, MRT and PET are superior to other technologies currently available. This applies, for example, to MRT used to investigate MS, herpes encephalitis, certain forms of epilepsy and arteriovenous anomalies or cavernomas. Further developments of the MRT technique are being used to visualize vascular anomalies or the penumbra in the case of cerebral infarction. Here, MRT is increasingly entering the area of functional imaging which, however, is primarily the domain of PET. For the first time, PET now allows us to objectify such otherwise merely subjective symptoms as chronic pain or tinnitus. In the preoperative diagnosis of epilepsy, for example in the case of temporal lobe epilepsy, PET has now been accepted as the standard technique.