Scouts: key concepts

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Scouts are used to place the images being viewed in a cross-sectional frame of reference. The scout window displays an image from an anatomical plane of the body perpendicular to the plane of the images being viewed on the Display page. The scout window as well depicts the position of the displayable images relative to each other and relative to the scout image itself. This is accomplished by indicating the position of each image with a (white or blue) line segment superimposed on the scout image. The images viewed (i.e. on the screen) in the Display page are indicated by blue line segments in the scout window. Of course, only those images that actually intersect the area depicted by the scout are indicated.

The two modalities that commonly use scout images are MR and CT.

In MR studies, scouts are not explicitly flagged by the modality (as in CT). Rather, an MR scout is an image from an orthogonal series where the scout lines represent the corresponding slices taken perpendicular to the current series. The scout image is usually one of the image from the middle of the series providing the greatest representation of the anatomy examined. For coronal or axial slices, the middle sagittal series would be used for the scout. For the sagittal series, the middle coronal slice would represent the scout image. The normal priority of orientation for an MR scout is sagittal, axial, and coronal (in that order).