Radiology’s Big Challenge: Imaging the ‘Morbidly Obese’

Acquiring an accurate CT, MR, or sonographic image of a 200-pound patient is usually a straightforward procedure. But what happens when a patient tips the scales at 400, 600, or even 800 pounds?A study emerging from Harvard Medical School sketches a troubling picture, suggesting that as morbid obesity increases, so, too, do the number of studies that radiologists have trouble interpreting due to poor image quality.

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