Radiology Research and Practice
Volume 2013, Article ID 219297, 15 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/219297
The Spleen Revisited: An Overview on Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Radiology Department, Hospital Garcia de Orta, 2801-951 Almada, Portugal
Received 2 June 2013; Revised 8 October 2013; Accepted 10 October 2013
Academic Editor: Andreas H. Mahnken
Copyright © 2013 João Palas et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Despite being well visualized by different cross-sectional imaging techniques, the spleen is many times overlooked during the abdominal examination. The major reason is the low frequency of splenic abnormalities, the majority consisting of incidental findings. There has been a steady increase in the number of performed abdominal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies; therefore, it is important to be familiar to the major MRI characteristics of disease processes involving the spleen, in order to interpret the findings correctly, reaching whenever possible the appropriate diagnosis. The spleen may be involved in several pathologic conditions like congenital diseases, trauma, inflammation, vascular disorders and hematologic disorders, benign and malignant tumors, and other disease processes that focally or diffusely affect the spleen. This paper presents a description and representative MRI images for many of these disorders.