Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2013
Summary
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
George Orwell, from the essay In Front of Your Nose, 1946.The rise of Emergency Radiology as a discrete subspecialty over the last 25 years, and in particular in the last decade, has unquestionably led to the more timely recognition of life-threatening illnesses and injuries, expedited appropriate management, and improved clinical outcomes.
The need for rapid decision making and management in patients who present with acute illnesses makes it especially important that radiologists recognize not only the typical findings of disease, but also mimickers and unusual diagnoses. As with others in this series, the aims of this book are to help the radiologist to discern the abnormal from the normal, to identify imaging artifacts that simulate disease, and to make subtle but important diagnoses that might otherwise go unrecognized.
The growth of imaging utilization in the emergency department over the past 10 years has been enormous. This is particularly so for MDCT. CT is now used in the emergency department not only as a way to resolve clinical enigmas, but also as a screening tool for a number of conditions, such as cervical spine trauma, pulmonary embolism, and suspected appendicitis in adults. Quite rightly, the expectations our clinical colleagues have of radiologists continue to grow with their increased use of complex imaging for acute patient care. Radiologists are now expected to provide real-time, accurate diagnoses, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, and in many cases, discuss cases before and after images are acquired.
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- Pearls and Pitfalls in Emergency RadiologyVariants and Other Difficult Diagnoses, pp. ixPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013
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