Customer Reviews

MRI Normal Variants and Pitfalls

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I didn't care for this book much. It strikes me as just a collection of images the authors had lying around. No real purpose or structure. To suggest that this book is about pitfalls is misleading. There's really no text to this book, just captions to pictures. So don't expect a discussion of common pitfalls and how to avoid them. This book isn't even remotely as useful as Keats, so the comparison is inaccurate in my opinion. The idea is a good one, but this book does not deliver what the title suggests.

I bought this book expecting it to be the MRI analogue to Keats (as suggested by the glowing user review from someone from the authors' institution). I've owned this book for ~2 years now, and every time I've gone to it to clear a variant (usually musculoskeletal), it hasn't failed to disappoint.

After learning the common anatomic variants and pitfalls in your first year or two of residency (see below), this book is no more helpful than a quick (and free) internet search. In fact, the internet search will usually direct you to an article that gives you a rationale to hang your hat on.

Some of the variants and pitfalls included in the book: artifact from spinal hardware (really), Caroli disease, annular pancreas, horseshoe kidney, fishmouth vertebrae, pelvic lipomatosis, fatty filum, bipartite patella, etc. It just goes on and on like this: page after page of commonly known entities.

Perhaps it's unfair to compare any book of variants to Keats, but once the bar has been set that high, a light book like this (both in weight and content) doesn't measure so well.

Nice book, good collection of images and it's great it covers GI, MSK, Neuro. However, what bothered me about this book is that it never tells you even a little about how to differentiate it from pathology. For instance, there's a picture of a bulbous tip of the basilar artery, a single axial MR picture. that's fine that entity is out there, but there are also small aneurysms you don't want to miss of this area. how does this book help me tell the difference? most of the pictures are one or two captions stating, "this is diagnosis x."

For years we have knee-jerked referencing Keats when "something just doesn't look quite right." Imaging has progressed significantly beyond the plain film era, but the reference texts for what is normal and what is not have failed to keep up with these advances. Finally, Bancroft and Bridges have provided the new generation with an excellent compendium titled "MRI Normal Variants and Pitfalls". Whether you are a medical student, resident/fellow, or practicing physician, this text will prove invaluable in your learning process and everyday practice.

The book is a head-to-toe compilation of normal variants, mimics of disease, and artifacts seen on MRI. True to its primary authors, where the book really shines is in its musculoskeletal and abdominal/pelvic chapters. The excellent quality of images and wide range of cases will surely help "bail out" many indecisive radiologists. This text will undoubtedly grow with each successive edition as technology advances and 3T imaging becomes mainstream.

It's not all business though. See page 228 for "Author's favorite animal signs in cirrhosis" for a good laugh.

Job well done, ladies.