Soft Tissue Masses MRI — Course Overview

Soft tissue masses are the brain teasers of imaging. There are a few that are pathognomonic, some that narrow down to either/or, and a whole lot that fall into the “could be”/differential of likelihood range. We’ve seen plenty, and though there are a few where we’re still looking for that perfect example of a proven entity, over time we’ve collected examples of many masses that might cross your monitors.

The risk of “pitfalls” in this area goes up considerably, especially if there aren’t a lot of distinguishing symptoms or clear indications. We recently had a case of rectosigmoid mass which was obscured by superimposed uterine fibroids and therefore missed by the original (very experienced) reader. Maybe you’ll have a correlative prior study or relevant CT…but more likely you won’t. If your referring clinician is a primary care provider or nonspecialist, your report becomes even more important to help guide the subsequent treatment path.

There are no doubt many areas where you have a certain level of experience/comfort – gout, ganglia, epidermoid, glomus tumors, plantar fibromatosis, pseudocysts etc. But maybe the patient age or other metrics don’t seem to match what you think is the likely diagnosis. What about the less common masses that vary in presentation, or you haven’t seen that often? It’s a lot easier to identify lymphatic anomalies or serous cystadenoma after you’ve seen a few,

The Soft Tissue Masses MRI Mastery Series can help shed some light in this diagnostic wilderness. We can share T1 vs T2 vs PD appearance tips, advantages and disadvantages of other delineating sequences, exclusion trees and subtle (as well as not so subtle) hints to help point you in the right direction. Enchondroma vs chondromyxoid fibroma? Just what is that in the synovium? We can’t answer every question, but we can share a pretty deep dive in this massive topic and give you a more thorough grounding in the endless possibilities throughout the body. We have the advantage of expertise (and substantial volume) in MSK, neuro and body MR. Better yet, we continue to add to this topic as we see more cases (and even manage to snag pathology if we’re lucky).

Join us on the path to improving our skills together – tease your brain with our Soft Tissue Masses Mastery Series (with some supplementary Professional Series bone and soft tissue masses) and give yourself an upgrade your referrers and patients will appreciate!

Soft Tissue Masses MRI Anatomy & Diagnoses Covered in this Course

• Adipocytic
• Ankle / Foot
• Arteriovenous fistula (AVF)
• Arteriovenous malformation (AVM)
• Desmoid
• Edema
• Elastofibroma dorsi
• Elbow
• Epidermoid
• Fibroblastic
• Fibrohistiocytic
• Fibrosarcoma
• Finger / Hand
• Ganglion pseudocyst
• Glomus
• Gout (differentiation from)
• Head
• Hemangiomas (e.g. congenital, infantile, syndromic)
• Hip
• Juvenile angiofibroma
• Knee
• Lipofibromatosis
• Lymphangioma
• Lymphatic malformations
• Lymphoma
• Malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH)
• Morel-Lavallée
• Myositis ossificans
• Neck
• Paraganglioma
• Pericytic
• Pigmented villonodular synovitis (PVNS)
• Plantar fibromatosis
• Schwannoma
• Shoulder
• Skeletal muscle
• Smooth muscle
• Synovial sarcoma
• Vascular malformations
• And much more…