Sinusitis FAQ

MRI or Cat Scan?

Question:

Being new to this..What is the best way to determine Sinus Infection.Are MRI ever used? In the Sinus Cat Scan of the Facial area only?  Thanks

Response:

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 19:35:53 -0500, "Richard Trembley" <rtrembl…@comcast.net> wrote: >Being new to this..What is the best way to determine Sinus Infection.Are MRI >ever used? In the Sinus Cat Scan of the Facial area only?  Thanks

The CAT scan is generally used pretty universally for the sinuses. It shows all sinuses. You might use an MRI in the specail case where you suspect cancer or fungal sinusitis, but otherwise it is inferior. http://adam.about.com/reports/000062_5.htm "Magnetic Resonance Imaging. MRI is not as effective as CT in defining the paranasal sinsus anatomy and therefore is not typically used to image the sinuses for suspected sinusitis. MRI is also more expensive than CT. However, it can help rule out fungal sinusitis and may help differentiate between inflammatory disease, malignant tumors, and complications within the skull."

Response:

The CT scan is the way to go. Make sure they do a full sinus CT scan and not a ‘head CT’ or a ‘limited sinus CT’. One thing to do is to get any sinus CTs you have on a CD for your records. Most places do this for free and include a viewer with the CT scans so you can take it to another doctor if you get a second opinion. Most ENT doctors will want to look at the actual CT scans not the written radiology report. For me, all I had to do was call up the radiology department 2 or 3 days before pickup, request the CT scans on CD, and fill out and sign a form when I picked the CD up.

Response:

Filed under: Sinusitis

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