Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery

BACKGROUND: Prognosis of twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) varies depending on the Quintero stage and fetal cardiac function. The purpose of our study was to evaluate fetal cardiac function before and after different intrauterine treatments of TTTS through myocardial performance index (MPI). METHODS: In this retrospective study, data were collected from August 2016 to December 2022. Totals of 68 cases of TTTS and 68 monochorionic diamniotic (MCDA) twins without TTTS were included...

BACKGROUND: Axillary lymph node (ALN) status is a crucial prognostic indicator for breast cancer metastasis, with manual interpretation of whole slide images (WSIs) being the current standard practice. However, this method is subjective and time-consuming. Recent advancements in deep learning-based methods for medical image analysis have shown promise in improving clinical diagnosis. This study aims to leverage these technological advancements to develop a deep learning model based on features extracted from primary tumor biopsies for preoperatively identifying ALN metastasis in early-stage breast cancer patients with negative nodes...

BACKGROUND: Minimally invasive glaucoma surgery (MIGS) has become an important treatment approach for primary open angle glaucoma. Restoration of aqueous humour drainage by means of alloplastic implants represents a promising treatment option and is itself subject of methodological development. An adequate positioning in the targeted tissue regions is essential is important for the performance of our in-house developed Rostock glaucoma microstent (RGM). The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of two animal models and human donor eyes regarding RGM placement...

BACKGROUND: Most primary bone tumors are often found in the bone around the knee joint. However, the detection of primary bone tumors on radiographs can be challenging for the inexperienced or junior radiologist. This study aimed to develop a deep learning (DL) model for the detection of primary bone tumors around the knee joint on radiographs. METHODS: From four tertiary referral centers, we recruited 687 patients diagnosed with bone tumors (including osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, giant cell tumor of bone, bone cyst, enchondroma, fibrous dysplasia, etc...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Running has been widely recognized as a beneficial activity for improving physical fitness, but it can also increase the risk of running-related injuries (RRIs). This study aims to assess the impact of long-term running on the structural and biochemical composition of the knee. METHODS: This study recruited a total of 32 participants, including 16 male recreational runners, aged 28-49 years, with a running experience of 2-7 years, and 16 matched sedentary controls...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.21037/qims-23-1569.].

BACKGROUND: Deep learning features (DLFs) derived from radiomics features (RFs) fused with deep learning have shown potential in enhancing diagnostic capability. However, the limited repeatability and reproducibility of DLFs across multiple centers represents a challenge in the clinically validation of these features. This study thus aimed to evaluate the repeatability and reproducibility of DLFs and their potential efficiency in differentiating subtypes of lung adenocarcinoma less than 10 mm in size and manifesting as ground-glass nodules (GGNs)...

BACKGROUND: An understanding of the anatomical structure is crucial for completing successful endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy (DCR) surgery. This study aimed to precisely delineate the spatial relationship between the lacrimal sac and the agger nasi cell (ANC) and evaluate the impact of ANC on surgical strategies in endoscopic DCR. METHODS: This retrospective cross-sectional study included 110 Han Chinese patients diagnosed with unilateral primary acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction (PANDO) from January 2021 to June 2023...

BACKGROUND: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-related white-matter microstructural abnormalities have received considerable attention; however, gray-matter structural abnormalities have not been fully elucidated. This study aimed to evaluate cortical microstructural abnormalities in ALS and determine their association with disease severity. METHODS: This study included 34 patients with ALS and 30 healthy controls. Diffusion-weighted data were used to estimate neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) parameters, including neurite density index (NDI) and orientation dispersion index (ODI)...

BACKGROUND: While standard clinical magnetic resonance (MR) enterography can detect inflammatory bowel disease, it is of limited value in deciding between medical versus surgical treatment. Alternatively, intestinal MR elastography has the potential to contribute additional information to therapeutic decision-making; however, the influence of bowel distension by oral contrast agent on viscoelastic tissue properties remains elusive. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the influence of oral contrast agent-induced bowel distension on the viscoelastic properties of the terminal ileum in healthy volunteers...

BACKGROUND: Dynamic chest radiography (DCR) is a novel and supplementary examination in respiratory diseases. The investigation of other chest diseases using DCR has been explored, identifying a certain correlation of the pulmonary function test (PFT). However, there is a lack of research using DCR parameters to quantitatively evaluate chest disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate the diagnostic value of DCR for diaphragm paralysis (DP). METHODS: This retrospective study recruited 118 participants, which include 18 patients with DP, 48 healthy volunteers, and 52 patients with respiratory disease...

BACKGROUND: The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into medicine is growing, with some experts predicting its standalone use soon. However, skepticism remains due to limited positive outcomes from independent validations. This research evaluates AI software's effectiveness in analyzing chest X-rays (CXR) to identify lung nodules, a possible lung cancer indicator. METHODS: This retrospective study analyzed 7,670,212 record pairs from radiological exams conducted between 2020 and 2022 during the Moscow Computer Vision Experiment, focusing on CXR and computed tomography (CT) scans...

BACKGROUND: Barlow's disease (BD) is a common etiology of degenerative mitral valve (MV) disease, often causing significant mitral regurgitation (MR). The pathology of BD is challenging for surgeons performing MV repair (MVR). However, most MVR effectiveness studies have been based on survival and risk of reoperation. The aim of this study was to analyze the safety, efficacy, and durability of MVR in patients with BD and to identify factors that influence recurrent MR. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical outcomes of 274 patients undergoing MVR for BD at a tertiary hospital (Guangdong People's Hospital, Guangzhou, China) between January 2010 and June 2022...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Parametrial infiltration (PMI) is an important indicator for staging and treatment of cervical cancer (CC). The potential of amide proton transfer-weighted (APTw) parameters of peritumor tissue in predicting PMI is still uncertain. This study aims to explore whether the APTw parameters of peritumor tissue can improve diagnostic value of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). METHODS: Eighty-one patients with pathologic analysis-confirmed CC were enrolled in this retrospective study...

BACKGROUND: Programmed death ligand-1 ( PD-L1 ) expression serves a predictive biomarker for the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in the treatment of patients with early-stage lung adenocarcinoma (LA). However, only a limited number of studies have explored the relationship between PD-L1 expression and spectral dual-layer detector-based computed tomography (SDCT) quantification, qualitative parameters, and clinical biomarkers. Therefore, this study was conducted to clarify this relationship in stage I LA and to develop a nomogram to assist in preoperative individualized identification of PD-L1 -positive expression...

BACKGROUND: Persistent challenges associated with misdiagnosis and underdiagnosis of coronary microvascular disease (CMVD) necessitate the exploration of noninvasive imaging techniques to enhance diagnostic accuracy. Therefore, we aimed to integrate multimodal imaging approaches to achieve a higher diagnostic rate for CMVD using high-quality myocardial metabolism imaging (MMI) and myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE). This combination diagnostic strategy may help address the urgent need for improved CMVD diagnosis...

BACKGROUND: High-grade gliomas (HGG) and solitary brain metastases (SBM) are two common types of brain tumors in middle-aged and elderly patients. HGG and SBM display a high degree of similarity on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images. Consequently, differential diagnosis using preoperative MRI remains challenging. This study developed deep learning models that used pre-operative T1-weighted contrast-enhanced (T1CE) MRI images to differentiate between HGG and SBM before surgery. METHODS: By comparing various convolutional neural network models using T1CE image data from The First Medical Center of the Chinese PLA General Hospital and The Second People's Hospital of Yibin (Data collection for this study spanned from January 2016 to December 2023), it was confirmed that the GoogLeNet model exhibited the highest discriminative performance...

BACKGROUND: Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with epidermal growth factor receptor-sensitizing (EGFR-sensitizing) mutations exhibit a positive response to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). Given the limitations of current clinical predictive methods, it is critical to explore radiomics-based approaches. In this study, we leveraged deep-learning technology with multimodal radiomics data to more accurately predict EGFR-sensitizing mutations. METHODS: A total of 202 patients who underwent both flourine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18 F-FDG PET/CT) scans and EGFR sequencing prior to treatment were included in this study...