Includes References

Over the past decades immense changes have occurred in medicine in general, and in the field
of radiology more specifically. In radiology departments, some became more specialised in
head and neck imaging in order to give better answers to referring ENT specialists. This
collaboration between the referring physician and the radiologist created an even more focused
interest on the temporal bone. In the 1980s, the fundamentals of temporal bone CT were
established, and in the 1990s a comparable evolution was noted in the field of temporal bone
MRI. Untill today, both imaging techniques have continuously evolved in the creation of
temporal bone images. In the last years cone-beam CT has been added to the CT instrumentarium, and a growing importance was seen in the use of MRI in patients with cholesteatoma, by the application of non-EPI diffusion-weighted images. Both topics get an
important place in this book. The purpose of the book is to provide a diverse view on temporal
bone imaging issues, and is built around chapters focusing on a topographical basis on one
hand, and on a pathological basis on the other hand. It was conceived that way to make the
book easy to read and use. Without pretending to be complete it covers the broad spectrum of
temporal bone imaging questions that the radiologist should be able to answer. Also some
more exotic pathologies are illustrated, but this book does not have the ambition to bring a
huge collection of castuistic examples.
Many authors coming from all over the world have collaborated on the book. We would
like to thank them all for their enthusiasm for and contribution to this project despite their busy
agendas. We are especially surprised by the excellent quality of the images that are presented
throughout the different chapters. Radiological images are for the radiologist what paintings
are for the painter. We hope that this book will be a museum worth repetitive visits. Last but
not least, we like to acknowledge Nancy Verpoort who did a tremendous job in correcting
illustrations and texts.
Marc Lemmerli