ANA Discussion Forum
General Category => AN Issues => Topic started by: Marion123 on April 11, 2013, 11:19:56 pm
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I had an MRI today without contrast. Just curious as to why sometimes a contrast is ordered and sometimes not?
I had the MRI done privately - I`m very claustrophobic also I would have had to wait until August. This MRI machine is an upright MRI and it helped me tremendously. My specialist will be sent a report and so will I and also I was handed a dvd of the brain scan but I have not looked at it because I`m sure I would not be able to decipher it.
I am very anxious to what the results are and I am surprised I wasn`t told straight away instead of having to wait for the mail. Thank you for this support forum reading your posts on how you handle everything is very helpful.
Marion
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ANs are very easy to spot on an MRI.
Check out the following images. Many of them have arrows pointing to the AN.
https://www.google.com/search?site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=907&bih=560&q=acoustic+neuroma+mri&oq=acoustic+ne&gs_l=img.1.1.0l10.1801.3756.0.5912.11.7.0.4.4.0.98.541.7.7.0...0.0...1ac.1.9.img.xIVFw2C-dWo
Then you can compare your images to see the place where ANs occur.
I haven't found any images without contrast so I have no idea what yours will look like.
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Contrast is gadolinium, a magnetic dye. The tumor cells take up the dye and appear white on the MRI making the tumor easier to see, or the tumor can be seen "in contrast" to the surrounding area.
The smaller the tumor, the more difficult it is to "find" on the MRI without contrast.
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My first MRI was done without dye and my second MRI had the dye. When viewing them side by side the AN without dye was quite easy to see but it appeared more grey and slightly fuzzy compared to the image with dye. The image with die was a bright white and had much clearer definition. The image with die looked like it may have been easier or more accurate to measure - just my guess.
Cathie