Magnetic resonance imaging has already become a most valuable imaging
modality in the diagnostic work-up of musculoskeletal neoplasms. While
high accuracy of MRI for staging purposes has been proven, we will focus
in this monograph on the characterization of primary bone and soft
tissue tumors by MRI. The major purpose of this monograph is to provide
an atlas of magnetic resonance features of primary bone and soft tissue
tumors for radiologists, orthopedic surgeons and physiotherapists. The
results presented are based on investigations of 94 primary bone and
soft tissue tumors and mimicking conditions by magnetic resonance
imaging. Although the scale of the material allows for statistical
handling, the number of patients per subgroup is too small to come to
definite conclusions. We will therefore limit ourselves to the
description of and comments on a great number of cases to illustrate the
diagnostic potential of this new imaging modality. We would like to
thank the anonymous cooperators: referring clinicians, pathologists,
nurses, technicians and secretaries whose help enabled us to present
this monograph. We would also like to express our gratitude to the firms
Siemens AG and Schering AG for technical support.