Angiography of Bone and Soft Tissue Lesions

Many bone lesions have a characteristic roentgen appearance, while others create diagnostic dilemmas not only for the radiologist, but also for the pathologist and surgeon. Arteriography is helpful in the diagnosis of these difficult cases, which cannot be diagnosed with certainty by the combined data from plain radiographs and histologic material. Since therapy is depen- dent on the specific diagnosis, and unnecessary radical surgery has been performed in the past for benign disease, the addition of arteriographic data may confirm or refute a diagnosis and be quite helpful to the patient and orthopedic surgeon. Issa Yaghmai has had a great interest in the angiography of bone lesions and has collected over 650 cases during the past 10 years. He has examined patients with virtually every type of bone lesion, and has faithfully cat- alogued and recorded his findings along with those of the pathologist. The histologically doubtful cases were sent to other renowned bone patholo- gists for opinions so that he could be as accurate as possible in correlating his angiographic findings with specific histologic diagnoses. His collection of bone arteriograms is surely one of the most extensive in the world. He has recorded in this volume the illustrations and information he has amassed, and supplemented it with pertinent information from an exhaustive review of the literature. Bone angiography is not for every patient with a bone lesion, and Issa carefully tells us when it will or will not help us in our differential diagnosis.