Gallarate Neuroradiology has recently renewed the diagnostic protocols of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), also including advanced imaging techniques currently available only in a few facilities.
These techniques, such as perfusion and spectroscopy, are useful for the characterization of brain expansions, improving the ability to differentiate tumor lesions from other types of masses in a non-invasive way, i.e. without the need to carry out a brain biopsy.
In the case of a brain tumor diagnosis, advanced techniques allow additional information to be obtained on the degree of biological aggressiveness of the neoplasm and on some histological characteristics, directing the subsequent process and therapies more accurately.
Finally, in the monitoring of cancer patients, their implementation will allow the positive response to treatments to be identified earlier and with greater accuracy, as well as any disease recurrence after surgical or oncological therapy.
Gallarate Neuroradiology has also implemented perfusion imaging not only to characterize the vascularization of brain masses, but also that of brain tissue. Applications in this sense are useful in acute and chronic cerebrovascular diseases.
In the case of stroke, therapies are now available that allow the occluded blood vessel causing the cerebral ischemia to be re-perfused.
However, these therapies are not free from complications, therefore it is crucial to balance the risk with the potential advantage in the individual patient, in order to offer each patient the best therapeutic strategy and avoid exposure to unjustified risks.
Therefore, the Neuroradiology of the Gallarate Hospital has equipped itself with a protocol for stroke with CT, angio-CT and cerebral CT with perfusion, which allows in a few minutes to confirm the diagnosis of cerebral ischemia, identify the potentially treatable and characterize the cerebral ischemic area by defining the volume of necrotic tissue (i.e. site of permanent damage already acquired) and that which is suffering but still salvageable by therapies.
This makes it possible to improve the prognosis of patients with stroke, especially in those cases that were evaluated late (which would be excluded from treatment on the basis of a purely temporal threshold) in which the existence of brain tissue that is still viable and at risk of necrosis can be demonstrated. , if not treated.
Gallarate Neuroradiology is made up of a team of highly professional radiology technicians and nurses who assist Dr. Claudia Godi, Neuroradiologist and new member of the Gallarate medical staff, and Dr. Laura Sola, Head of the Radiology Unit .
Dr. Godi comes from a long professional experience developed at the S. Raffaele Hospital in Milan, and collaborates with the major highly specialized centers in Milan and Lombardy.
She has been a teacher of the II and III level Master of Neuroradiology, a speaker at national and international conferences on neuroradiology and other medical disciplines, and is the leader of international research projects in the neuroradiological field.
In the new reality, the Neuroradiology of the Gallarate Hospital participates in multicenter clinical studies in the neuroradiological sector and is currently leader of some projects on neuroimaging in trauma and on vascular imaging promoted by the European neuroradiological society in collaboration with other Italian and foreign centres, in particularly with the London center of Queen Square (UCL, University College London).
“The new methods introduced allow Gallarate Radiology to increasingly be a point of reference for neuroradiological diagnostics, confirming the desire of the ASST Valle Olona to consolidate its realities and develop the skills of its professionals to improve the quality of the services offered ”, concludes Dr. Stefano Schieppati, Medical Director of ASST Valle Olona.
