Interactive Transcript
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So, this was a patient that had left-sided
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breast cancer and was treated with
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high-dose chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
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So, again, the abnormality was on the left side.
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So, again, when I start looking at the
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brachial plexus, the first thing that I
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have to do is look at the normal side.
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So, on the right-hand side, we can see the
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normal appearance of the subclavian artery,
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and right above this, we can see the cords
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of the brachial plexus right below it.
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So, we can see that they are nice and thin.
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We can see a nice fat stripe between
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the superior portion of the subclavian
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artery and the inferior portion of
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the cords of the brachial plexus.
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Now, when we scroll and we start looking
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at the left side, what we end up seeing
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is that we can see the subclavian
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artery, but notice the brachial plexus.
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Notice how the brachial plexus is
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diffusely thickened, and there's not
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really a definable mass, rather, it's
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just, again, diffusely thickened, and I
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use the term it's almost glued together.
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And then when I look at the STIR
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sequences, what we see here is that
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there's actually abnormal signal. Again,
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involving the cords of the brachial
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plexus on the left compared to the right.
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So, we see the normal STIR signal on the left.
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Now, on the far-right image, again,
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this is a sequence that's optimized
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to look at the nerves themselves.
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And again, we can see very nice
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clarity of some of the exiting
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nerve roots from the spinal canal.
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But when we look at the brachial plexus on the
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left, again, we see diffuse abnormal thickening
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and abnormal enhancement of the brachial
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plexus in the high-dose radiation field.
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So this is an example, again, of radiation
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associated brachial plexopathy due
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to a neuritis that is associated with
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the radiation therapy that was given
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in this patient with breast cancer.
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