What is the role of CT and MRI in the evaluation of patients with a hernia?
These techniques provide superior anatomic detail for hernia detection, hernia classification, determination of hernia size and contents, detection of hernia-related complications, and detection of posthernia repair complications. Prone or lateral decubitus positioning along with acquisition of images during a Valsalva maneuver may be useful to improve the conspicuity of hernias (in up to 50%) and to reveal otherwise occult subtle or reducible hernias (in up to 10%).
