How to tell MRI artefacts?

[Joiedecour]

I have been looking over my MRIS (just got copies of recent ones yesterday) in preparation for finding a new neuro.

I was told there were no changes between first and second brain MRI. Looking at it myself, on the Axial Diff. images of the second scan, there are two very distinct white dots in the "bump" (don't you love my technical language?) right under the curve of the corpus callosum. I checked and these are not on the first brain mri.

So since I was told I had no changes, I am wondering if there is any way I can determine whether they are just technical blots (I think they're called artefacts?) from mri process. There are two, small dots right next to each other which appear on several, but not all, of the slices.

I would post the image, but I haven't been able to figure out yet how to capture and then edit a single image from my cd. Will post if I can work it out.

[Joiedecour]

For anyone looking at these and wondering, the dots are artefacts, but neuro hadn't seen any like that. Positive is it got me a quick appt. - in 4 days - and a no to MS

[immisceo]

Love that, Kyle!

Because it's a bit more of an involved process the get your scans over here (in the E.U.), I actually didn't obtain my MRI disk until after I was diagnosed. I think, in the end, this was a good thing in my case.

My doctors did have my care and treatment well in hand by then, and I was able to just able to look at them like "Neat, huh? So you're the little buggers who've been causing the problems!" instead of the obsessing I might have done if I'd had them earlier in the process.

Don't get me wrong, every patient deserves to have them at whatever step in the process they wish to have them, but the later timing worked in my favour. I second Laura. Any neuro worth his salt will address these concerns of yours. In the mean time, looking at your brain may be akin to seeing mirages in the desert. You could torment yourself over that oasis you swear you saw!

[kwarendorf]

For those of you you have joined recently...

20 years ago, during what turned out to be my first MS episode, I was sent to get images of my brain. This was Pre-CD and I picked up the films to bring to my neurologist. I sat in my car and pulled them out. The first thing I saw was a large black spot right at the base of my brain.

That's it, I thought. Brain Tumor! I'm a gonner! When I got tot the doctor he but the film up into the light box. He immediately pointed to the exact same black spot. "Your blood flow looks excellent." he said. :-)

That was the last time I practiced radiology :-)

Kyle

[Joiedecour]

Thanks, Laura!! That's a vey cute picture of you LOL. No seriously, though, very classic from what I've read. Mine doesn't look anything like that, but the dots are new. Who knows?? I give up trying to work this stuff out. WAY too complicated. Maybe that's why I'm not earning the big buck doctor salary LOL.

[Lulu54]

I wish there was a magic way to get new folks to stop driving themselves crazy, but if that happened I wouldn't much be needed around here, would I  ?  :-)

Seriously, it takes time to accept that you can't make heads or tails out of this stuff. I do have a few pics of my MRIs from early diagnosis up - this one shows a classic view and why I got a quick dx.

http://www.medhelp.org/user_photos/show/68208?personal_page_id=865800

[Joiedecour]

Thanks, Sarah, and Laura, for comments. Yes, Laura, I have been driving myself crazy reading anything I can get my hands on, and I've spend a few hours now on the links you sent me. Just look so many others, I just want answers, and these are not so easy to come by, it would seem! But thank you for adding to my study list - I had not in fact found those sites : )

[Lulu54]

Also, here's another really cool site if you want to read the technical side of artifacts.  There are pictures to go with the big words and they demonstrate different types of artifacts, using an egg.

http://chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/roosts/carl/artifacts.html

[Lulu54]

Ahh, I see you have fallen into the same pit almost all of us do when we get that MRI copy.  I spent hours looking and looking and driving myself crazy trying to figure out what I was seeing.  

Radiologists and neuros spend years and years learning to read these things - much more than the couple hundred hours I have tormented  myself with to try to understand what I was seeing.  I still look at mine at times and wonder if I am imagining things or not.

  There's a good site with artifact images at http://radiopaedia.org/articles/mri-artifacts but again, don't drive yourself crazy looking at it too long.

Take those films to the new neuro and specifically ask what they are. Any doc worth your time will take the time to discuss it with you.

~Laura

[Joiedecour]

Finally figured out how to copy and crop mris!! So I've posted three images on my profile under photos where the "two dots" are visible.

For anyone with an eye for these things, do these look like "artefacts" (ie problems with mri?) or lesions, albeit small ones?

And if they are in fact lesions, would these count as "corpus callosum" lesions? Or is the area beneath the corpus callosum a completely different entity?

This isn't the only stuff on my mris, but I'm most interested in these two dots because they do NOT appear on my previous mri from 5 months previous.