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Is there an alternative to a MRI?
I have a small screw in my foot (from a surgery) that prevents me from getting an MRI of my ankle. Is there an alternative that could give a Dr a view of any possible damage to the muscles, tendons and ligaments?
3 Answers
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
MR is far and away the best study to look at the muscles, tendons, and ligaments. A CT will show the bone well (although there will still be artifact from the screw), and may show a completely disrupted tendon, but it will not show subtle abnormalities of the muscle or tendons, and won't show ligaments at all.
Depending on where the screw is, and what specifically your doctor is concerned about, you may still want to get the MRI. It will not be a great study, but your doctor may still get useful information from it.
It is important for the technologist and radiologist to know you have a screw in your foot, and where it is, because they will probably want to alter their routine imaging sequences to compensate.
Source(s): I'm a radiologist. - Anonymous1 decade ago
CT scan. It's not as detailed, but when you can't get an MRI, it's the next best thing.
And PET scans are useful only in monitoring glucose uptake in tissues. Pretty useless in assessing damage to a non-respiring tissue like a ligament.
