MR arthrography of the shoulder and hip after fluoroscopic landmarking

Purpose. To describe a technique for intra-articular injection in the MR su ite after conventional fluoroscopic landmarking in order to streamline MR a rthrography. Design and patients. This technique was performed on 33 consecutive patient s referred for MR arthrography of the shoulder to evaluate the glenoid labr um and on 15 consecutive patients referred for MR arthrography of the hip t o evaluate the acetabular labrum. The patients were landmarked in the fluor oscopy suite, followed by a conventional MR examination. The intra-articula r injection was then performed on the MR table and the MR arthrographic seq uences obtained. Results. One of the 48 injections was extra-articular, requiring a second i njection. The other injections were performed without incident, and the ave rage total procedure time for all injections was 10 min. Conclusions. This technique is a reliable method of streamlining intra-arti cular injections when performing conventional MR imaging prior to the MR ar thrographic portion of the examination. It shortens the total MR examinatio n time by eliminating a visit to the fluoroscopy suite in the middle of the MR study, and its use of a straight anterior approach for both the shoulde r and hip joints should be familiar to most people who perform conventional arthrography.