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In the modern healthcare system, the segmentation process is really helpful to aid in the diagnosis process. In this paper, the efficient metaheuristic approach - Modified Whale Optimization Algorithm and Minimum Cross Entropy (MWOA & MCE) based multilevel thresholding is proposed for segmentation of the computer tomography (CT) liver image. Segmentation of liver cyst image is the main objective of this paper, which will assist doctors to diagnose liver cysts. The results of segmentation of CT liver images are compared with other algorithms, Teaching-Learning-based optimization algorithm, Jaya algorithm and Genetic algorithm, to evaluate the efficiency of the MCE & MWOA approach. Different performance calculating methods like Uniformity, Structure Similarity Index (SSIM), Root Mean Square Error (RMS Error), Rand Index (RI), Execution time, Variation of Information (VoI) and Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) are assessed from an original and resultant image. In comparison to other algorithms, the proposed method's findings demonstrate that the MCE & MWOA algorithm achieve accurate and efficient segmentation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we designed and demonstrated a stimuli-responsive hydrogel that mimics the mass diffusion function of the liver. We have controlled the release mechanism using temperature and pH variations. Additive manufacturing technology was used to fabricate the device with nylon (PA-12), using selective laser sintering (SLS). The device has two compartment sections: the lower section handles the thermal management, and feeds temperature-regulated water into the mass transfer section of the upper compartment. The upper chamber has a two-layered serpentine concentric tube; the inner tube carries the temperature-regulated water to the hydrogel using the given pores. Here, the hydrogel is present in order to facilitate the release of the loaded methylene blue (MB) into the fluid. By adjusting the fluid's pH, flow rate, and temperature, the deswelling properties of the hydrogel were examined. The weight of the hydrogel was maximum at 10 mL/min and decreased by 25.29% to 10.12 g for the flow rate of 50 mL/min. The cumulative MB release at 30 °C increased to 47% for the lower flow rate of 10 mL/min, and the cumulative release at 40 °C climbed to 55%, which is 44.7% more than at 30 °C. The MB release rates considerably increased when the pH dropped from 12 to 8, showing that the lower pH had a major impact on the release of MB from the hydrogel. Only 19% of the MB was released at pH 12 after 50 min, and after that, the release rate remained nearly constant. At higher fluid temperatures, the hydrogels lost approximately 80% of their water in just 20 min, compared to a loss of 50% of their water at room temperature. The outcomes of this study may contribute to further developments in artificial organ design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voxel-wise quantitative assessment of typical characteristics in three-dimensional (3D) multiphase computed tomography (CT) imaging, especially arterial phase hyperenhancement (APHE) and subsequent washout (WO), is crucial for the diagnosis and therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, this process is still missing in practice. Radiologists often visually estimate these features, which limit the diagnostic accuracy due to subjective interpretation and qualitative assessment. Quantitative assessment is one of the solutions to this problem. However, performing voxel-wise assessment in 3D is difficult due to the misalignments between images caused by respiratory and other physiological motions. In this paper, based on the Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (v2018), we propose a registration-based quantitative model for the 3D voxel-wise assessment of image characteristics through multiple CT imaging phases. Specifically, we selected three phases from sequential CT imaging phases, i.e., pre-contrast phase (Pre), arterial phase (AP), delayed phase (DP), and then registered Pre and DP images to the AP image to extract and assess the major imaging characteristics. An iterative reweighted local cross-correlation was applied in the proposed registration model to construct the fidelity term for comparison of intensity features across different imaging phases, which is challenging due to their distinct intensity appearance. Experiments on clinical dataset showed that the means of dice similarity coefficient of liver were  98.6 % and  98.1 % , those of surface distance were  0.38 and  0.54 mm, and those of Hausdorff distance were  4.34 and  6.16 mm, indicating that quantitative estimation can be accomplished with high accuracy. For the classification of APHE, the result obtained by our method was consistent with those acquired by experts. For the WO, the effectiveness of the model was verified in terms of WO volume ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: The selected attributes and their ranking and weights can be used in decision support algorithms in computer aided diagnosis. The liver is one of the most common locations for incidental findings during abdominal CT scans. There are multiple types of disease that can arise within the liver and many of them are nodular. The ultimate goal of our research is to develop an expert knowledge-based system using fuzzy signatures, to support decisions during diagnosis of the most frequent of these nodular lesions. Since the literature contains limited information about the graphical properties of CT images that must be taken into consideration and their relationship to one another, in this paper we focused on selecting and ranking the input parameters using expert knowledge and determining their importance. Six visual attributes of lesions (size, shape, density, homogeneity contour, and other features) were selected based on textbooks of radiology and expert opinion. The importance of these attributes was ranked by radiologist experts using questionnaires and a pairwise comparison technique. The most important feature was found to be the density of the lesion on the various CT phases, and the least important was the size, the order of the other attributes was other features, contour, homogeneity, and shape, with a Kendall concordance coefficient of 0.612. Weights for the attributes, to be used in the future fuzzy signatures, were also determined. As a last step, several statistical parameter-based quantities were generated to represent the above abstract attributes and evaluated by comparing them to expert opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) have become increasingly powerful, generating mind-blowing photorealistic images that mimic the content of datasets they have been trained to replicate. One recurrent theme in medical imaging, is whether GANs can also be as effective at generating workable medical data, as they are for generating realistic RGB images. In this paper, we perform a multi-GAN and multi-application study, to gauge the benefits of GANs in medical imaging. We tested various GAN architectures, from basic DCGAN to more sophisticated style-based GANs, on three medical imaging modalities and organs, namely: cardiac cine-MRI, liver CT, and RGB retina images. GANs were trained on well-known and widely utilized datasets, from which their FID scores were computed, to measure the visual acuity of their generated images. We further tested their usefulness by measuring the segmentation accuracy of a U-Net trained on these generated images and the original data. The results reveal that GANs are far from being equal, as some are ill-suited for medical imaging applications, while others performed much better. The top-performing GANs are capable of generating realistic-looking medical images by FID standards, that can fool trained experts in a visual Turing test and comply to some metrics. However, segmentation results suggest that no GAN is capable of reproducing the full richness of medical datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The automatic recognition of CT (Computed Tomography) images of liver cancer is important for the diagnosis and treatment of early liver cancer. However, there are problems such as single model structure and loss of pooling layer information when using a traditional convolutional neural network to recognize CT images of liver cancer. Therefore, this paper proposes an efficient method for liver CT image recognition based on the capsule network (CapsNet). Firstly, the liver CT images are preprocessed, and in the process of image denoising, the traditional non-local mean (NLM) denoising algorithm is optimized with a superpixel segmentation algorithm to better protect the information of image edges. After that, CapsNet was used for image recognition for liver CT images. The experimental results show that the average recognition rate of liver CT images reaches 92.9% when CapsNet is used, which is 5.3% higher than the traditional CNN model, indicating that CapsNet has better recognition accuracy for liver CT images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: No previous research papers have reported a comparative survey of local radiologic diagnoses and central review in children with hepatoblastoma. Objective: To evaluate the utility of central review of children with hepatoblastoma enrolled in a clinical trial. Materials and methods: The study included 91 children enrolled in a clinical trial conducted by the Japanese Study Group for Pediatric Liver Tumor. We compared the results of the initial pre-treatment extent of tumor (PRETEXT) disease staging performed at local sites with the results obtained on central review to determine the concurrence rates for tumor staging and additional criteria. Results: The concurrence rate for PRETEXT staging was 70%. As the stage increased, the concurrence rate decreased. Using additional criteria, central review identified 143 lesions (157.1%), about 1.8 times higher than the number identified for the local site diagnoses. The additional criterion found most often on central review was "multifocal lesion" (n=19). The concurrence rate for lung metastases was high. However, our central review found many false-positive assertions of hepatic vein lesions, portal vein invasion and extrahepatic lesions among the local site diagnoses. Conclusion: In a clinical trial of hepatoblastoma, central review provided a more precise diagnosis than local site diagnoses with respect to severe PRETEXT stages III and IV cases and other cases including hepatic and portal vein invasion. The central review process appears to be effective and essential for improving the quality of clinical trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by polyarticular, symmetric, and aggressive inflammation of the small joints in the hands and feet, resulting in dysfunction. With progress and development in medicine, treatment of RA is constantly evolving, making several drugs available for the treatment of RA. From the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) at the start of illness to glucocorticoids and then to conventional synthetic DMARDs (csDMARDs), biologic DMARDs (bDMARDs), and targeted synthetic DMARDs (tsDMARDs), therapeutic-use drugs for RA have been keeping pace with scientific research. However, various types of drugs have additional side effects when used over the long-term. New and emerging biological and targeted agents have been widely applied in recent years; however, the side effects have not been thoroughly investigated. In this paper, we review the research progress on liver damage caused by novel biological and targeted agents available for RA treatment. The aim is to provide a reference for rational clinical administration of such drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe an algorithm for accurately segmenting multiple nudfclei from clumps of non-overlapping immuno-histochemically stained histological hepatic (liver) images. This problem is notoriously difficult because of the degree of presence of stains among the multi-nucleated cells, the poor contrast of cell cytoplasm, and the presence of mucus, blood, and inflammatory cells in the images. Hepatocellular carcinoma, characterized by cellular and nuclear enlargement, nuclear pleomorphism, and multi-nucleation, poses a prominent threat. Our proposed method addresses the aforementioned issues for an automated diagnosis system by judging the presence of multiple nuclei in a two-step process: the Quickhull algorithm defines the convex hull of each cell in the image and candidate nuclei regions are located with morphological operations. A combination of features containing local minima and shape-dependent features is extracted for the detection of single or multiple nuclei in each cell with a significant reduction in the number of false positives and false negatives providing an accuracy of 89.76%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides summary of our experiments with automatic segmentation of liver parenchyma. It presents methods and classifiers that we used on computer tomography medicine data. In introduction there are a description of our motivation to do this research. Second part contains information about our approach, list of methods and classifiers. In part called results, we presents figure with subset of our experiment results and described evaluation. Summary at the end of this paper presents future research of this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the number of robotic hepatectomy (RH) performed is increasing, few studies have reported its efficacy in comparison with the conventional surgical modalities. The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the perioperative results of RH vs. open hepatectomy (OH) and RH vs. laparoscopic hepatectomy (LH). We systematically searched for English papers published in PubMed (Medline), Embase, and Cochrane library before March 1, 2020. A total of 39 papers and 2999 patients were eventually included. Among the included patients, 1249, 1010, and 740 underwent RH, LH, and OH, respectively. Compared with OH, the operation time was significantly increased but the intraoperative blood loss, blood transfusion rate, incidence of severe complications, and length of postoperative hospitalization were significantly reduced in patients with RH. However, there was no significant difference in the use of Pringle maneuver and overall incidence of complications. Compared with LH, the operation time was significantly increased, and the intraoperative blood loss was also more in RH. However, there were no differences in blood transfusion rate, use of Pringle maneuver, incidence of complications, incidence of severe complications, and length of postoperative hospitalization between the two groups. A longer operation time remains the main shortcoming of RH. However, based on the perioperative clinical efficacy, we conclude that RH is comparable to LH but is better than OH for selected patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The liver segments divided by Couinaud classification method are used to understand the functional anatomy of liver, which is significant in hepatic resection surgery. In Couinaud classification method, each third‐order branch of the portal vein (PV) defines the supplied territory of a corresponding liver segment. However, the accuracies of the reconstruction and classification of PV are affected by the complicated structure of the vein. The purpose of this paper is to develop a separation and classification method that can accurately extract the liver segments. Methods: In this paper, a multiple feature‐based method is proposed to obtain liver segments. Because the portal and hepatic veins usually connect in the vessel segmentation result, the PV is first completely separated based on the different strategies for minimal node cut using fused features of topology and appearance. Meanwhile, all bifurcation nodes of PV are detected. The bifurcation nodes are initial ordered through their linkages to classify the branches. Then, the feature of the vascular topology is used to refine the orders of bifurcation nodes. The bifurcation nodes with the refined orders classify the branches between them, and the third‐order branches of PV are obtained. The liver segments are eventually obtained through the third‐order branches. Results: The separation and classification in the proposed method are evaluated on the CT and MR datasets. The average values of Dice, Jaccard, Recall, and Precision obtained by the proposed method are 93.00%, 87.90%, 93.47%, and 93.19%, respectively. Compared with the state‐of‐the‐art methods, the separation results obtained by the proposed method are more accurate. The branches of PV are classified based on the separation result. According to the third‐order branches, eight liver segments correspond to the different functional areas are precisely extracted. Conclusions: The proposed method achieves a high accuracy for the liver segment extraction. And the extracted liver segments are significant for the preplanning of resection surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of our paper was to present current knowledge, review literature and available practice guidelines of international hepatological associations regarding the effect of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 coronavirus on the liver, patients with underline liver disease, awaiting on liver transplantation (LTx) or being after LTx in the pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioimpedance spectroscopy is a promising method for tissue ischemia monitoring; it is used in this research to study ischemia and cell morphology using bioimpedance measurements of rabbit liver tissue. This paper presents the evolution of Cole parameters and cell parameters with time and establishes a relation between cellular morphological changes during cell ischemia with bioimpedance measurements at different frequencies. The general behavior of ischemic liver tissue has been analyzed. Evolution of Cole parameters was extrapolated from BIS measurements, and their behavior was studied with respect to time. Then, cell parameters were estimated from Cole parameters. A detailed analysis of the changes of cell parameters was done in parallel with explanations for these changes depending on the physiological mechanism of ischemia and necrosis bioprocess. These explanations give a confirmation of the established relation between cell morphological changes and the corresponding BIS measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe the case of a 40-year-old patient with an expanding and symptomatic complex liver cyst. Despite comprehensive diagnostics, including labs, imaging and biopsy, a clear etiology could not be determined. As a result, a partial liver resection was performed. The histopathological examination revealed evidence of schistosomas. We postulate that the displacement of the portal fields created a pseudocyst and that the resultant ischemia was the root cause of the patient's discomfort. Postoperatively, the patient received an antihelmintic therapy with praziquantel with which she was able to fully recover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liver cultures may be used for disease modeling, testing therapies, and predicting drug‐induced injury. The complexity of the liver cultures has evolved from hepatocyte monocultures to co‐cultures with non‐parenchymal cells and finally to precision‐cut liver slices. The latter culture format retains liver's native biomolecular and cellular complexity and therefore holds considerable promise for in vitro testing. However, liver slices remain functional for ≈72 h in vitro and display limited utility for some disease modeling and therapy testing applications that require longer culture times. This paper describes a microfluidic device for longer‐term maintenance of functional organotypic liver cultures. This microfluidic culture system is designed to enable direct injection of liver tissue into a culture chamber through a valve‐enabled side port. Liver tissue is embedded in collagen and remained functional for up to 31 days, highlighted by continued production of albumin and urea. These organotypic cultures also express several enzymes involved in xenobiotic metabolism. Conversely, matched liver tissue embedded in collagen in a 96‐well plate loses its phenotype and function within 3–5 days. The microfluidic organotypic liver cultures described here represent a significant advance in liver cultivation and may be used for future modeling of liver diseases or for individualized liver‐directed therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aimed to examine the impact of flavonoid osajin (OSJ) on liver damage induced by sepsis. A total of 30 male rats were divided into 5 groups (Sham, sepsis, OSJ 150, OSJ 300 and reference). During sepsis, elevated lipid peroxidation (LPO) level and catalase activity (CAT) and decreased glutathione (GSH) level and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity were observed in hepatic tissues of sepsis group in comparison with Sham group. A strong interleukin-33 and caspase-3 expressions were detected in hepatic tissues of sepsis group. On the contrary, OSJ administration to OSJ 300 group showed a significant decrease (P < 0.001) in LPO level (176±2.926) and significant increase (P < 0.001) in GSH level (10.586±0.083) and SOD activity (29.152±0.094) in comparison with sepsis group (185.777±1.735, 8.246±0.124, 24.307±0.379 respectively). In addition, the consumption of OSJ reduced expressions of interleukin-33 and caspase-3 and improved histopathological integrity. In conclusions, OSJ has hepatoprotective effect against sepsis-induced liver injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liver responses are the most common endpoints used as the basis for setting exposure standards. Liver hepatocytes play a vital role in biotransformation of xenobiotics, but non-parenchymal cells (NPCs) in the liver are also involved in certain liver responses. Development of in vitro systems that more faithfully capture liver responses to reduce reliance on animals is a major focus of New Approach Methodology (NAMs). Since rodent regulatory studies are frequently the sole source safety assessment data, mode-of-action data, and used for risk assessments, in vitro rodent models that reflect in vivo responses need to be developed to reduce reliance on animal models. In the work presented in this paper, we developed a 2-D hepatocyte monoculture and 2-D liver cell co-culture system using rat liver cells. These models were assessed for conditions for short-term stability of the cultures and phenotypic and transcriptomic responses of 2 prototypic hepatotoxicants compounds – acetaminophen and phenobarbital. The optimized multi-cellular 2-D culture required use of freshly prepared hepatocytes and NPCs from a single rat, a 3:1 ratio of hepatocytes to NPCs and growth medium using 50% Complete Williams E medium (WEM) and 50% Endothelial Cell Medium (ECM). The transcriptomic responses of the 2 model systems to PB were compared to previous studies from TG-Gates on the gene expression changes in intact rats and the co-culture model responses were more representative of the in vivo responses. Transcriptomic read-outs promise to move beyond conventional phenotypic evaluations with these in vitro NAMs and provide insights about modes of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a literature review of the role of CXC motif chemokine ligand 1 (CXCL1) in physiology, and in selected major non-cancer diseases of the cardiovascular system, respiratory system and skin. CXCL1, a cytokine belonging to the CXC sub-family of chemokines with CXC motif chemokine receptor 2 (CXCR2) as its main receptor, causes the migration and infiltration of neutrophils to the sites of high expression. This implicates CXCL1 in many adverse conditions associated with inflammation and the accumulation of neutrophils. The aim of this study was to describe the significance of CXCL1 in selected diseases of the cardiovascular system (atherosclerosis, atrial fibrillation, chronic ischemic heart disease, hypertension, sepsis including sepsis-associated encephalopathy and sepsis-associated acute kidney injury), the respiratory system (asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic rhinosinusitis, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), influenza, lung transplantation and ischemic-reperfusion injury and tuberculosis) and the skin (wound healing, psoriasis, sunburn and xeroderma pigmentosum). Additionally, the significance of CXCL1 is described in vascular physiology, such as the effects of CXCL1 on angiogenesis and arteriogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A precise and accurate method for the simultaneous determination of azaperone and azaperol in meat tissues has been developed. This paper describes the first method to be so fast, simple, and useful, especially for many laboratories that do not have sophisticated equipment. This method is based on LC separation and UV-Vis detection. During the sample preparation, the meat tissue was homogenized in acetonitrile at a ratio of 1:4 (tissue weight:acetonitrile volume). The homogenate was centrifuged, the supernatant was evaporated in a lyophilizator, and then the evaporation residue was dissolved in 20 µL of ethanol. For deproteinization, 15 µL of perchloric acid was added, and the sample prepared in this way was injected into a chromatographic column and analyzed using reversed-phased HPLC. The mobile phase consisted of 0.05 mol/L phosphate buffer pH 3.00 (component A) and acetonitrile (component B). UV detection was conducted at 245 nm. The experimentally determined LOQs were 0.25 µg/kg for azaperone and 0.12 µg/kg for azaperol. For both analytes, the calibration curves showed linearity in the tested concentration range from 50 to 300 µg/kg of tissue. The accuracy of the presented method did not exceed 15%, and the recovery was in the range of 85–115%. A validated analytical procedure was implemented for the analysis of various animal tissues for their content of azaperone and azaperol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microorganisms living on the surface and inside the human body play an important role in the physiological activities of the human body. The largest microecosystem in the human body is the gut microbiome. Calcium disorders are found in many diseases. For example, patients with chronic renal insufficiency present with secondary hyperparathyroidism, which is caused by a calcium imbalance in the body. In addition, calcium dysregulation may affect lipid metabolism in the liver through the calmodulator pathway, leading to cirrhosis, etc. Currently, a considerable number of probiotics have been proven to enhance the body’s absorption of calcium. This paper reviews the effects of intestinal flora and related factors such as short-chain fatty acids, estrogen, immune factors and vitamin D on calcium balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the mechanism underlying toxicity in the livers of male and female rats after treatment with 1-tetradecyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([C14mim]BF4, 0 [control], 12.5, 25, or 50 mg/kg) for 90 days. The results showed that [C14mim]BF4 exposure led to a high level of ROS and MDA in rat livers and the lower expression of Nrf2 and its downstream related antioxidant proteins. In addition, the expression of NF-κB p65 and the levels of inflammatory cytokines were upregulated in exposure groups rats' liver. After 30 days of cessation of exposure, the liver injury of rats in the 50 mg/kg exposure group was alleviated, and the above indicators were improved to varying degrees. The paper shows that [C14mim]BF4 could damage rat liver through oxidative stress and inflammatory pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to explore whether functional liver imaging score (FLIS) based on Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images at 5, 10, and 15 min can predict liver function in patients with liver cirrhosis or chronic liver disease and its association with indocyanine green 15-min retention rate (ICG-R15), Child-Pugh (CP) score, albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) score, and model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score. In addition, it also examines the inter- and intra-observer consistency of FLIS and three FLIS parameters at three different time points. Methods: This study included 110 patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) or liver cirrhosis (LC) (93 men, 17 women; mean ± standard deviation = 56.96 ± 10.16) between July 2019 and May 2022. FLIS was assigned in accordance with the sum of the three hepatobiliary phase characteristics, all of which were scored on the 0–2 ordinal scale, including the biliary excretion, hepatic enhancement and portal vein signal intensity. FLIS was calculated independently by two radiologists using transitional and hepatobiliary phase images at 5, 10, and 15 min after enhancement. The relationship between FLIS and three FLIS quality scores and the degree of liver function were evaluated using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. The ability of FLIS to predict hepatic function was investigated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results: Intra- and inter-observer intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) (ICC = 0.937–0.978, 95% CI = 0.909–0.985) for FLIS at each time point indicated excellent agreement. At each time point, FLIS had a moderate negative association with liver function classification (r = [−0.641]-[−0.428], p < 0.001), and weak to moderate correlation with some other clinical parameters except for creatinine (p > 0.05). FLIS showed moderate discriminatory ability between different liver function levels. The area under the ROC curves (AUCs) of FLIS at 5, 10, and 15 min after enhancement to predict ICG-R15 of 10% or less were 0.838, 0.802, and 0.723, respectively; those for predicting ICG-R15 greater than 20% were 0.793, 0.824, and 0.756, respectively; those for predicting ICG-R15 greater than 40% were 0.728, 0.755, and 0.741, respectively; those for predicting ALBI grade 1 were 0.734, 0.761, and 0.691, respectively; those for predicting CP class A cirrhosis were 0.806, 0.821, and 0.829, respectively; those for predicting MELD score of 10 or less were 0.837, 0.877, and 0.837, respectively. No significant difference was found in the AUC of FLIS at 5, 10 and 15 min (p > 0.05). Conclusion: FLIS presented a moderate negative correlation with the classification system of hepatic function at a delay of 5, 10, and 15 min, and patients with LC or CLD were appropriately stratified based on ICG-R15, ALBI grade, MELD score, and CP classification. In addition, the use of FLIS to evaluate liver function can reduce the observation time of the hepatobiliary period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microgravity as experienced during spaceflight affects a number of physiological processes in various organs. However, effects on the liver have yet been poorly documented. Nevertheless, the liver is a metabolically highly active organ involved in carbohydrate metabolism, lipid metabolism and xenobiotic biotransformation. The present paper provides an overview of the effects of microgravity on the liver observed in experimental animals during actual spaceflight and upon simulation of microgravity on Earth. These include (i) induction of liver injury and inflammation associated with apoptosis and oxidative stress, (ii) changes in liver carbohydrate metabolism resulting in the onset of a diabetogenic phenotype, (iii) modifications in hepatic lipid metabolism leading to early non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease and (iv) alterations of the hepatic xenobiotic biotransformation machinery. Although most of these observations remain to be fully validated in humans, appropriate measures to counteract liver pathogenesis should be considered, especially in view of long‐term space missions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Necroptosis contributes to hepatocyte death in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), but the fate and roles of necroptotic hepatocytes (necHCs) in NASH remain unknown. We show here that the accumulation of necHCs in human and mouse NASH liver is associated with an up-regulation of the "don't-eat-me" ligand CD47 on necHCs, but not on apoptotic hepatocytes, and an increase in the CD47 receptor SIRPα on liver macrophages, consistent with impaired macrophage-mediated clearance of necHCs. In vitro, necHC clearance by primary liver macrophages was enhanced by treatment with either anti-CD47 or anti-SIRPα. In a proof-of-concept mouse model of inducible hepatocyte necroptosis, anti-CD47 antibody treatment increased necHC uptake by liver macrophages and inhibited markers of hepatic stellate cell (HSC) activation, which is responsible for liver fibrogenesis. Treatment of two mouse models of diet-induced NASH with anti-CD47, anti-SIRPα, or AAV8-H1-shCD47 to silence CD47 in hepatocytes increased the uptake of necHC by liver macrophages and decreased markers of HSC activation and liver fibrosis. Anti-SIRPα treatment avoided the adverse effect of anemia found in anti-CD47–treated mice. These findings provide evidence that impaired clearance of necHCs by liver macrophages due to CD47-SIRPα up-regulation contributes to fibrotic NASH, and suggest therapeutic blockade of the CD47-SIRPα axis as a strategy to decrease the accumulation of necHCs in NASH liver and dampen the progression of hepatic fibrosis. Targeting necroptosis in NASH: Impaired efferocytosis of dying cells is known to contribute to inflammation in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Shi et al. now show that impaired efferocytosis of necroptotic hepatocytes contributes to liver fibrosis in NASH. Targeting the CD47 "don't eat me" signal on these necroptotic hepatocytes decreased the progression of hepatic fibrosis in a preclinical NASH model, and an anti-SIRPα antibody achieved similar results to anti-CD47, but without eliciting anemia in the mice. This paper implicates necroptotic hepatocytes in NASH fibrosis and suggests that this pathway may be targetable.—CAC [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cisplatin (cDDP)-based chemotherapy is often limited by severe deleterious effects (nephrotoxicity, hepatotoxicity and neurotoxicity). The polynuclear palladium(II) compound Pd2Spermine (Pd2Spm) has emerged as a potential alternative drug, with favorable pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic properties. This paper reports on a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance metabolomics study to (i) characterize the response of mice brain and liver to Pd2Spm, compared to cDDP, and (ii) correlate brain-liver metabolic variations. Multivariate and correlation analysis of the spectra of polar and lipophilic brain and liver extracts from an MDA-MB-231 cell-derived mouse model revealed a stronger impact of Pd2Spm on brain metabolome, compared to cDDP. This was expressed by changes in amino acids, inosine, cholate, pantothenate, fatty acids, phospholipids, among other compounds. Liver was less affected than brain, with cDDP inducing more metabolite changes. Results suggest that neither drug induces neuronal damage or inflammation, and that Pd2Spm seems to lead to enhanced brain anti-inflammatory and antioxidant mechanisms, regulation of brain bioactive metabolite pools and adaptability of cell membrane characteristics. The cDDP appears to induce higher extension of liver damage and an enhanced need for liver regeneration processes. This work demonstrates the usefulness of untargeted metabolomics in evaluating drug impact on multiple organs, while confirming Pd2Spm as a promising replacement of cDDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The liver represents the most frequent location of metastatic disease in colorectal cancer (CRC). In oligometastatic disease, while surgery remains the mainstay of treatment, loco-regional therapies allow to locally control tumor progression and prolong survival. There is consensus in the use of transhepatic arterial radioembolization (TARE) in metastatic CRC chemorefractory patients, with liver-only or liver-dominant disease. Beyond this indication, TARE may be considered in other clinical scenarios, such as in the second-line combined with chemotherapy, as a bridge in between different lines of systemic therapies, and as ablative technique under specific circumstances. This paper outlines the current evidence for TARE in mCRC and presents possible future indications and directions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finasteride (Fin) causes androgen imbalance by inhibiting the conversion of testosterone (T) to its more active metabolite, dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Androgen receptors (AR) are present (e.g., in hepatocytes), which have well-developed endoplasmic reticulum (ERet). Cellular protein quality control is carried out by ERet in two paths: (i) unfolded protein response (UPR) and/or (ii) endoplasmic reticulum associated degradation (ERAD). ERet under continuous stress can generate changes in the UPR and can direct the cell on the pathway of life or death. It has been demonstrated that genes involved in ERet stress are among the genes controlled by androgens in some tissues. Oxidative stress is also one of the factors affecting the functions of ERet and androgens are one of the regulators of antioxidant enzyme activity. In this paper, we discuss/analyze a possible relationship between androgen imbalance in paternal generation with ERet stress and liver disorders in both paternal and filial generation. In our rat model, hyperglycemia and subsequent higher accumulation of hepatic glycogen were observed in all filial generation obtained from females fertilized by Fin-treated males (F1:Fin). Importantly, genes encoding enzymes involved in glucose and glycogen metabolism have been previously recognized among UPR targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complete tumor coverage by the thermal ablation zone and with a safety margin (5 or 10 mm) is required to achieve the entire tumor eradication in liver tumor ablation procedures. However, 2D ultrasound (US) imaging has limitations in evaluating the tumor coverage by imaging only one or multiple planes, particularly for cases with multiple inserted applicators or irregular tumor shapes. In this paper, we evaluate the intra-procedural tumor coverage using 3D US imaging and investigate whether it can provide clinically needed information. Using data from 14 cases, we employed surface- and volume-based evaluation metrics to provide information on any uncovered tumor region. For cases with incomplete tumor coverage or uneven ablation margin distribution, we also proposed a novel margin uniformity -based approach to provide quantitative applicator adjustment information for optimization of tumor coverage. Both the surface- and volume-based metrics showed that 5 of 14 cases had incomplete tumor coverage according to the estimated ablation zone. After applying our proposed applicator adjustment approach, the simulated results showed that 92.9% (13 of 14) cases achieved 100% tumor coverage and the remaining case can benefit by increasing the ablation time or power. Our proposed method can evaluate the intra-procedural tumor coverage and intuitively provide applicator adjustment information for the physician. Our 3D US-based method is compatible with the constraints of conventional US-guided ablation procedures and can be easily integrated into the clinical workflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polychlorinated dibenzo‐p‐dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) in various foods continuously concern the public. Pork and its byproducts, especially from Yorkshire pigs, are the largest meat food consumed by the general population in China. This study aims to investigate the distribution of PCDD/Fs in different tissues of Yorkshire pigs to understand their bioaccumulation. Yorkshire pigs were fed a known amount of PCDD/Fs through fly ash. PCDD/Fs were determined by isotope dilution method with a gas chromatography‐high resolution mass spectrometer. The liver had the highest concentration levels (2041.33 pg/g lipid) and toxic equivalents values (69.14 pg/g lipid), followed by the spleen and lung, and the lowest ones in the brain. The liver also had the highest bioaccumulation of PCDD/Fs, and this level was considerably higher than that of other tissues. This study showed a strong accumulation capacity of the liver for polychlorinated dibenzo‐p‐dioxins and dibenzofurans under short‐term exposure conditions, suggesting that the liver is a more sensitive tissue for monitoring PCDD/Fs in food safety risk monitoring. Practical Application: This paper may help the consumer in making food choices to minimize the exposure risk to Polychlorinated dibenzo‐p‐dioxins and dibenzofurans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present paper is twofold. Firstly, to assess the absorbed dose in small lesions using Monte Carlo calculations in a scenario of intratumoral injection of 90Y (e.g., percutaneous ablation). Secondly, to derive a practical analytical formula for the calculation of the absorbed dose that incorporates the absorbed fractions for 90Y. The absorbed dose per unit administered activity was assessed using Monte Carlo calculations in spheres of different size (diameter 0.5–20 cm). The spheres are representative of tumor regions and are assumed to be uniformly filled with 90Y. Monte Carlo results were compared with the macrodosimetric approach used for dose calculation in liver radioembolization. The results of this analysis indicate that the use of the analytic model provides dose overestimates below 10% for lesions with diameter larger than approximately 2 cm. However, for lesions smaller than 2 cm the analytic model is likely to deviate significantly (>10%) from Monte Carlo results, providing dose overestimations larger than 50% for lesions of 0.5 cm diameter. In this paper an analytical formula derived from MC calculations that incorporates the absorbed fractions for 90Y is proposed. In a scenario of intratumoral injection of microspheres, the proposed equation can be usefully employed in the treatment planning of spherical lesions of small size (down to 0.5 cm diameter) providing dose estimates in close agreement with Monte Carlo calculations (maximum deviation below 0.5%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In the recent decades, energy drinks consumption has increased dramatically. Many researches found their adverse effects on the structure and function of organs and systems, with nervous and cardiovascular systems most studied. Liver is one of the priority target organs in case of beverages consumption. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of energy drink consumption on morphofunctional conditions of liver. Design/methodology/approach: A search in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and eLIBRARY.ru databases was performed using relevant keywords. Findings: Both clinical and experimental data concerning effects of energy drink use on structure and function of liver are summarized and systematized in this review. Most of them documented hepatotoxicity after prolonged over-consumption of energy drinks. Probable mechanisms of action of their basic ingredients (sugars, caffeine, taurine, D-glucuronolactone, vitamin B3) on morphology and functioning of liver as well as combined use of energy drinks with alcohol are described. Originality value: This review paper represents evidential information about the negative impact of energy drink consumption on morphofunctional conditions of liver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma (GRER) has been used as a medicinal plant and dietary supplements for its beneficial effect in immunomodulatory effects. Sulfur fumigation (SF) processing was widely used in the storage and maintenance of Chinese medicine because of its convenience and cheapness. However, the disadvantage of SF has been reported, but the systematic study of SF on GRER was deficient. In this paper, the active ingredients, sulfur-fumigated products, immunomodulatory effect, and liver injury of SF-GRER were studied. After SF, the liquiritin decreased from 4.49 ± 0.03 mg/g to 3.94 ± 0.08 mg/g (P < 0.01). Compared with the NSF-GRER group, the SF-GRER group showed a decreased immunoregulation in the thymus index, spleen index, and serum IL-6 and SOD levels (P < 0.05). After 2 weeks of continuous intragastric administration of SF-GRER in healthy mice, the level of serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST) significantly increased (P < 0.05) and the area of liver lesion significantly increased compared with the NSF-GRER (P < 0.05) group. The sulfonated products (m/z, 631.13) corresponding to liquiritin apioside (m/z, 551.17) and isoliquiritin apioside (m/z, 551.17) were screened out in SF-GRER by using UPLC-Orbitrap-MS. The sulfonated products provided in this paper were discovered for the first time and could be powerfully applied for the identification of SF-GRER. SF destroyed the chemical composition of GRER, inhibited immunoregulation, and induced liver injury. The feasibility of this processing method needs to be reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liver disorders are very common now-a-days due to social and status life style of human beings. A number of modern medicines are available in the market but have various adverse effects. Traditional system of medicine is so ingrained in our culture that, about 80% of the Indian population depends on this system for relief. With such a huge section of an ever increasing population relying on herbal remedies, it is imperative that the plant products which have been in use for such a long time be scientifically supported for their efficacy. The present paper deals with the investigation of pharmacognostical and physicochemical parameters of AI: Abutilon indicum(Leaves), PN: Phyllanthus niruri (Fruits), EA: Eclipta alba (Leaves) and AS: Allium sativa (Bulb). In these study physicochemical parameters, extraction and preliminary photochemical screening was reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liver transplantation is often the last treatment option for patients with massive liver disease and associated liver dysfunction. However, the transport of donor organs is often done via static cold storage (SCS), during which the organ is not perfused and can thus be injured. The DeLiver research project was aimed to improve this situation and a new approach to transporting livers grafts using normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) was developed. At the same time, the OCS™ Liver, Transmedics Inc., was developed. This NMP system is presented in this paper in comparison with the DeLiver system. The comparison of the DeLiver system with commercially available systems cannot be completed as there are no explicit markers to evaluate the effectiveness of the systems. Possible steps to further improve the use of NMP approaches are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liver diseases of various etiologies are becoming increasingly common in the pediatric population. So far, the gold diagnostic standard in these disorders is liver biopsy. This procedure is invasive, painful and requires general anesthesia in this group of patients. Due to the continuous development of new research techniques, such as liver elastography, it is necessary to evaluate them in the context of their diagnostic usefulness. Ultrasound elastography, as a quick and effective method, is being used more and more often in the assessment and monitoring of liver dysfunction in both adults and children. There are several techniques of liver elastography, such as transient elastography, shear wave elastography consisting of various subtypes such as two-dimensional shear wave elastography, acoustic radiation force impulse and point shear wave elastography, which differ in terms of the measurement technique and the achieved results. The purpose of our review was to determine whether techniques of liver elastography could replace liver biopsy. Although now, based on the analyzed papers, elastography cannot replace liver biopsy, in our opinion, the role of this tool in monitoring pediatric patients with liver diseases will grow in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schisandra chinensis (S. chinensis) has a long history as a traditional Chinese medicine that is astringent, beneficial to vital energy, tonifies the kidney, tranquilizes the heart, etc. Significantly, Schisandrol A (SA) is extracted from S. chinensis and shows surprising and satisfactory biological activity, including anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, cardiovascular protection, and antitumor properties, among others. SA has a more pronounced protective effect on central damaged nerves among its numerous pharmacological effects, improving neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's through the protection of damaged nerve cells and the enhancement of anti-oxidant capacity. Pharmacokinetic studies have shown that SA has a pharmacokinetic profile with a rapid absorption, wide distribution, maximal concentration in the liver, and primarily renal excretion. However, hepatic and intestinal first-pass metabolism can affect SA's bioavailability. In addition, the content of SA, as an index component of S. chinensis Pharmacopoeia, should not be less than 0.40%, and the content of SA in S. chinensis compound formula was determined with the help of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), which is a stable and reliable method, and it can lay a foundation for the subsequent quality control. Therefore, this paper systematically reviews the preparation, pharmacological effects, pharmacokinetic properties, and content determination of SA with the goal of updating and deepening the understanding of SA, as well as providing a theoretical basis for the study of SA at a later stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abdominal Computed Tomography (CT) scan gives more information about diseases of the liver, gallbladder, and biliary tract. In the image processing approach, liver segmentation is an essential step to be done before liver lesion detection. Liver segmentation removes the unwanted regions from the CT image and makes the task of lesion detection easier. In this paper, a novel Morph-Rec model based on morphological reconstruction operation is proposed for liver segmentation from CT images. The proposed work is focused on segmenting the liver region from the CT slices irrespective of the size and shape of the liver region. The proposed model is validated on 2650 CT slices of 120 and 20 CT scans from the LITS and 3DIRCADb datasets, respectively. The proposed Morph-Rec method is evaluated using metrics such as dice score, accuracy, F1 score, Jaccard index and Matthew's correlation coefficient. To justify the adaptability and efficiency of the proposed model, it is also validated on 50 CT slices of nine CT scans provided by a local scan centre. The proposed method has produced excellent results on all metrics and the obtained results are better than the state-of-the-art conventional methods for liver segmentation. Hence, the proposed technique is an automatic and dataset-generic model that can perform liver segmentation precisely on any CT acquisition of the liver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chronic hyperglycemia of diabetes is associated with long-term damage, dysfunction, and failure of various organs. Therefore, the objective of this paper was to assess the effects of wonderful kola (Buchholzia coriacea) on biochemical markers such as liver and kidney in alloxan induced diabetic Wistar rats using appropriate standard techniques. The result showed that Buchholzia coriacea seed extract caused significant (p<0.05) reduction in the levels of glucose. The liver function test revealed notable changes in the negative control group compared to the control group, including elevated levels of AST, ALT, ALP, and T.P (*p<0.05). Treatment with Metformin and the high dose of Wonderful Kola exhibited significant improvements in AST, ALT, and ALP levels compared to the negative control (#p<0.05), suggesting potential hepatoprotective effects. The kidney function test, revealed notable difference In comparison to the control group, the negative control group showed significantly (p<0.05) elevated levels of Urea, Creatinine, K, Na, Cl, T.B, and C.B. Treatment with Metformin demonstrated a significant (p<0.05) decrease in Urea and Creatinine levels compared to the negative control. The low and high doses of Wonderful Kola resulted in significant (p<0.05) reductions in Urea, Creatinine, and T.B levels, with the high dose also significantly decreasing Na and Cl levels compared to the negative control. The methanoic extract of Buchholzia coriacea seed possess hypoglycemic properties and may therefore be beneficial in the management of diabetes mellitus at the above dosage and treatment period. Buchholzia coriacea especially at high doses exhibited protective effects on the liver and kidney biochemical markers in alloxan induced diabetic rats, highlighting its potential as a therapeutic agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) typically presents with hepatic fibrosis in advanced disease, resulting in increased liver stiffness. A subset of patients further develops liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Cardiovascular disease is a common comorbidity in patients with MASLD and its prevalence is increasing in parallel. Recent evidence suggests that especially liver stiffness, whether or not existing against a background of MASLD, is associated with heart diseases. We conducted a narrative review on the role of liver stiffness in the prediction of highly prevalent heart diseases including heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias (in particular atrial fibrillation), coronary heart disease, and aortic valve sclerosis. Research papers were retrieved from major scientific databases (PubMed, Web of Science) until September 2023 using 'liver stiffness' and 'liver fibrosis' as keywords along with the latter cardiac conditions. Increased liver stiffness, determined by vibration-controlled transient elastography or hepatic fibrosis as predicted by biomarker panels, are associated with a variety of cardiovascular diseases, including heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and coronary heart disease. Elevated liver stiffness in patients with metabolic liver disease should lead to considerations of cardiac workup including N-terminal pro-- B-type natriuretic peptide/B-type natriuretic peptide determination, electrocardiography, and coronary computed tomography angiography. In addition, patients with MASLD would benefit from heart disease case-finding strategies in which liver stiffness measurements can play a key role. In conclusion, increased liver stiffness should be a trigger to consider a cardiac workup in metabolically compromised patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]