NIR IMAGING OF THE FOOT - UTILITY OF COMPLEX OBLIQUE IMAGING PLANES

Successful MR imaging of the foot presents special challenges to the r adiologist. Accurate and confident diagnosis presupposes the ability t o produce high-resolution images of obliquely oriented, relatively sma ll structures, orienting the foot within an appropriate local coil to bring such structures into an orthogonal imaging plane, or even into a conventional oblique plane, may be impossible or intolerably uncomfor table for the patient. The frequent result is motion artifacts, which are accentuated when using a small field of view. However, when patien ts are comfortably positioned, the anatomy of interest often lies in a plane that is not orthogonal to any of the conventional imaging plane s. Fortunately, commercially available MR imaging equipment can produc e images in complex oblique planes with relative ease. In this pictori al essay, we discuss the technical considerations for expedient diagno stic MR imaging of the complex anatomy of the foot and illustrate our experiences with this technique.