Are we sure that Terri didn't have an MRI in 1990?

Most people and websites seem to say that she never had one, but there a few sites like
http://www.theempirejournal.com/02230551_medical_observations_sh.htm (a pro-the parents view site no less) which say that she DID have an MRI in 1990, at least.

Has anyone sifted through enough of the court documents to see whether she EVER had one? I haven't seen anything either way.

Anybody know for sure?

I saw the images posted here a few days ago.

and one might have been ordered. However, it would have shown only the earliest stages of atrophy and only slightly enlarged ventricles. By the time an MRI might have shown anything more definitive, electrodes had been implanted (1992) which would have cast shadows in the picture and rendered an MRI useless as any sort of diagnostic test.

Remember, that CT scan that has been posted online is the result of years of brain atrophy and its replacement by cerebrospinal fluid.

Were they to saw this unfortunate woman's skull open and remove the electrodes (thus causing tears and other damage to the brain tissue into which they were implanted) so that they could give her yet another ueless test, it would show little beyond what has already been shown by the CT scans, that the woman's cerebral cortex is essentially GONE.

An MRI isn't magic. It won't replace what isn't there.

I think she had all kinds of tests done the first few years plus some experimental treatments involving electrodes.

I think that's why she can't have an MRI now, because of the electrodes.

But also that she has had other kinds of brain imaging done. There was a picture posted on DU (which I can't locate now) showing a cross-section of her brain, in which the entire center was missing and filled with fluid. In other words, her cortex looked like a doughnut. It's a pretty powerful imaging in arguing for her being in a persistent vegetative state.

who was one of the doctors who testified before the court that she was not giving an MRI. He stated that she was not given an MRI because it would not have been able to show them anything more than what the CAT scan she had previously been given showed.

Now there was a medical reason as to why the MRI would not show them any new evidence, and he stated what that was, but I can't recall it right at the moment. Nevertheless, it is a safe bet that if you are looking at a site that is promoting the parents position, and hence the religious rights position, they are just trying to create the impression that not everything that could be done for Terri was being done. When the truth is an MRI would not tell us anything that we already don't know.

She also has had numerous CT scans and EEGS as late as 2002. They all confirmed the diagnosis of PVS.

http://pekinprattles.blogspot.com/2005/03/dr-cranfords-complete-terri-schiavo.html

Here is what right-wing nut job and Rocky Mountain News editor had to admit today about Schiavo and the MRI:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_3645650,00.html

"Missing MRI, part 2

In Wednesday's column I referred to a report quoting a neurologist who questioned whether Terri Schiavo had been provided every relevant test to gauge her condition - which prompted a distinguished local physician and former president of the American Academy of Neurology to weigh in. Dr. Steven Ringel e-mailed me to say he has followed the case and that "a brain MRI was never done because (1) an MRI is contraindicated in Terri's case because she has an implanted thalamic stimulator and (2) an MRI would not be of additional value as the brain CT showed severe atrophy." Moreover, he added, two EEGs showed "no electrical activity." In short, he is confident of Schiavo's diagnosis - an opinion worth considering in any assessment of this tragic case."

In otherwords, like so many things the radical clerics and the Bushites are trying to bring up in case, it is a distraction, irrelevant, and is an attempt at smear.

This has to be hard for neurologists like Ringel to take. They are the experts in matters of the brain and the top ones were tapped to examine and diagnose Mrs. Schiavo.

Too bad the fundie churches have gotten to some of them, too.