Three-dimensional (3D) imaging has recently gained much attention in the evaluation of a variety of clinical application, including abdominal, pelvic, cardiothoracic, neuromuscular and vascular applications.
The goal of 3-D imaging is to overcome limitations 2-D imaging by providing an imaging technique that reduces the variability of the conventional technique and allows the diagnostician to view the anatomy in 3-D. One disadvantage of 2-D imaging relates to mentally transform the 2-D images into a 3-D tissue structure, and make the diagnosis or perform an interventional procedure. The reason for 3-D imaging is that 3-D information in the evaluation of lesions including volume measurement, localization and mapping is easy to understand efficient, accurate, objective and reproducible. Therefore, advantage of 3-D imaging is easy understanding of 3D information, more photo-realistic due to advanced rendering, any arbitrary plane obtainable, and increased patient throughput by offline rendering.
In this session, brief description of basic principle of 3D imaging will be provided, and the clinical utility of 3-D imaging including ultrasound, CT and MRI in upper abdominal diseases will be discussed.