Search

In 2018, the position paper 'Imaging the adult with congenital heart disease: a multimodality imaging approach' was published. The paper highlights, in the first part, the different imaging modalities applied in adult congenital heart disease patients. In the second part, these modalities are discussed more detailed for moderate to complex anatomical defects. Because of the length of the paper, simple lesions were not touched on. However, imaging modalities to use for simple shunt lesions are still poorly known. One is looking for structured recommendations on which they can rely when dealing with an (undiscovered) shunt lesion. This information is lacking for the initial diagnostic process, during repair and at follow-up. Therefore, this paper will focus on atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect, and persistent arterial duct. Pre-, intra-, and post-procedural imaging techniques will be systematically discussed. This position paper will offer algorithms that might help at a glance. The document is prepared for general cardiologists, trainees, medical students, imagers/technicians to select the most appropriate imaging modality and to detect the requested information for each specific lesion. It might serve as reference to which researchers could refer when setting up a (imaging) study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The objective of this study was to identify the highly cited references that drove the research on implant dentistry with CBCT. Materials and Methods: The literature database Web of Science Core Collection was accessed to identify a collection of papers on this theme. Cited reference analysis was conducted with the aid of CRExplorer, dedicated bibliometric software. Results: The analysis succeeded in identifying the papers that introduced the very first CBCT machines in the Asian and European markets, respectively; papers that proved the CBCT measurement accuracy, its ability to visualize sinus floor penetration, and its reduced metal artifact relative to conventional CT; papers that gave imaging guidelines for implant cases; and papers reporting bone remodeling at extraction sockets and the possibility of grafting at sites with inadequate bone. Conclusion: These publications together provided solid evidence to support subsequent dental implant research and evaluation by CBCT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: COPD; cystic fibrosis; hypertension; lung cancer; pulmonary embolism EN COPD cystic fibrosis hypertension lung cancer pulmonary embolism 492 495 4 01/27/21 20210201 NES 210201 This is a synopsis from a recently published Fleischner Society Position Paper entitled "Expanding Applications of Pulmonary MRI in the Clinical Evaluation of Lung Disorders."[1] Pulmonary MRI has had limited clinical utility for patients with lung disease, and as such, it is not performed with any regularity in the clinic. Puderbach, M. Eichinger, J. Haeselbarth, Assessment of morphological MRI for pulmonary changes in cystic fibrosis (CF) patients: comparison to thin-section CT and chest x-ray. COPD, cystic fibrosis, hypertension, lung cancer, pulmonary embolism. [Extracted from the article]

Historical documents are often severely damaged, making it impossible to open them manually without causing further damage. To address this challenge, computed tomography (CT) has emerged as a non-destructive method to explore the inside in a different way. However, the use of ionising radiation in CT scanning raises concerns about its impact on fragile historical documents. This study presents a methodology that uses a test object to conduct preliminary investigations to evaluate the capability of a CT scanner for digital preservation of historical documents. By assessing the feasibility and determining the setting parameters in advance, the X-ray exposure to historical documents can be minimised. For this purpose, a large dataset of inter-page distances was obtained from CT scans of a specially developed test object. The results obtained show a consistent correlation between the page-to-page distances and the derived modulation depths. This method offers great potential for assessing the separability of the pages of historical documents even before they are exposed to radiation for digitisation. Overall, this study helps to reduce the impact of X-ray radiation on sensitive historical documents during digitisation using CT, with the aim of preserving this fragile cultural heritage for future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trauma, both blunt and penetrating, is extremely common worldwide, as trauma to major vessels. The management of these patients requires specialized surgical skills and techniques of the trauma surgeon. Furthermore few other surgical emergencies require immediate diagnosis and treatment like a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (rAAA). Mortality of patients with a rAAA reaches 85 %, with more than half dying before reaching the hospital. These are acute events demanding immediate intervention to save life and limb and precluding any attempt at transfer or referral. It is the purpose of this position paper to discuss neck, chest, extremities and abdominal trauma, bringing to light recent evidence based data as well as expert opinions; besides, in this paper we present a review of the recent literature on rAAA and we discuss the rationale for transfer to referral center, the role of preoperative imaging and the pros and cons of Endoluminal repair of rAAA (REVAR) versus Open Repair (OR). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing demand for application of personalized bone implants (endoprostheses or macro-scaffolds, and fixators) which conform to the anatomy of the patient. Hence the need for a CAD procedure that enables fast and sufficiently accurate digital reconstruction of the traumatized bone geometry. Research presented in this paper addresses digital reconstruction of the femoral neck fracture. The results point out that the User-Defined (geometric) Feature (UDF) concept is the most convenient to use in digital reconstruction of numerous variants of the same topology, such as in this kind of bone region. UDF, named FemoNeck, is developed to demonstrate capability of the chosen concept. Its geometry, controlled by a dozen of parameters, can be easily shaped according to the femoral neck region anatomy of a particular patient. That kind of the CAD procedure should use a minimally required set of geometric (anatomical) parameters, which can be easily captured from X-ray or Computed Tomography (CT) images. For the statistical analysis of geometry and UDF development we used CT scans of proximal femur of 24 Caucasian female and male adults. The validation of the proposed method was done by applying it for remodeling of four femoral necks of four different proximal femurs and by comparing the geometrical congruency between the raw polygonal models gained directly from CT scan and reconstructed models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An attempt is made in this paper to diagnose brain-related diseases like sarcoma, fatal stroke disease, cerebral disease, and Alzheimer's disease by using saliency information from magnetic resonance and computed tomography source images. The saliency information for each source image is computed using guided and median filters. The obtained saliency maps are used for computing the weight maps of each source image by using image statistics. The obtained weights are used to fuse the approximate and detailed layers of the source images by using the weighted average fusion technique. The proposed algorithm is simulated in MATLAB for various benchmark data sets of brains taken from the brain atlas provided by Harvard Medical School, available at https://www.med.harvard.edu/aanlib. In order to test the efficacy of the novel method, comparative analysis is performed in terms of image quality assessment metrics like mean, mutual information, average gradient, standard deviation, spatial frequency, etc. From the analysis, this paper concludes that the proposed algorithm improved gradient information in the fused image by 35.7%, entropy by 5.7%, spatial frequency by 32.7%, edge strength by 14.5%, and minimized the information loss by 43.6%. Therefore, the novel method of weight map computation produces a detailed and noise-free image, which is helpful for better diagnosis in clinical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The liver is the most injured organ in abdominal trauma. Road traffic crashes and antisocial, violent behavior account for the majority of liver injuries. The present position paper represents the position of the World Society of Emergency Surgery (WSES) about the management of liver injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order for enterprise imaging to be successful across a multitude of specialties, systems, and sites, standards are essential to categorize and classify imaging data. The HIMSS-SIIM Enterprise Imaging Community believes that the Digital Imaging Communications in Medicine (DICOM) Anatomic Region Sequence, or its equivalent in other data standards, is a vital data element for this role, when populated with standard coded values. We believe that labeling images with standard Anatomic Region Sequence codes will enhance the user's ability to consume data, facilitate interoperability, and allow greater control of privacy. Image consumption—when a user views a patient's images, he or she often wants to see relevant comparison images of the same lesion or anatomic region for the same patient automatically presented. Relevant comparison images may have been acquired from a variety of modalities and specialties. The Anatomic Region Sequence data element provides a basis to allow for efficient comparison in both instances. Interoperability—as patients move between health care systems, it is important to minimize friction for data transfer. Health care providers and facilities need to be able to consume and review the increasingly large and complex volume of data efficiently. The use of Anatomic Region Sequence, or its equivalent, populated with standard values enables seamless interoperability of imaging data regardless of whether images are used within a site or across different sites and systems. Privacy—as more visible light photographs are integrated into electronic systems, it becomes apparent that some images may need to be sequestered. Although additional work is needed to protect sensitive images, standard coded values in Anatomic Region Sequence support the identification of potentially sensitive images, enable facilities to create access control policies, and can be used as an interim surrogate for more sophisticated rule-based or attribute-based access control mechanisms. To satisfy such use cases, the HIMSS-SIIM Enterprise Imaging Community encourages the use of a pre-existing body part ontology. Through this white paper, we will identify potential challenges in employing this standard and provide potential solutions for these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to use 3D imaging technology in medical treatment, some strict rules must be followed. This is consistent with the previous article [1] that five conditions must be followed to obtain ideal three‐dimensional (3D) imaging. This paper continues to provide some important supplements. It is importent especially in remote 3D telemedicine. The condition of "simultaneous arrival" should be added to the second condition to make it more accurate. Otherwise, the imagery will cause dizziness, and cannot even form a stereo image. Especially in VR and AR, the head sometimes needs to rotate left and right. We cooperated with Ms. Liu, the chief stomatologist of Yayi Hospital (the co‐author of this paper), and based on the theory of non‐paraxial optics, we designed some additional instruments, such as bilateral screen stereo imager and stereo glasses, that were applied to stomatology, and achieved some preliminary results. For example, the plane image of skull that can be rotated 360 degrees by CT scan can be converted into stereoscopic images of various angles. The three dimensional distribution of root canal and artificial fixation post can be seen by moving X‐ray light to take two X‐ray photos of gingiva and then viewing with stereoscopic glasses. The stereo "image pair" of the upper jaw or lower jaw in the reflector can be photographed with a self‐madestereo camera by two side‐by‐side mobile phones. The stereo image of the oral cavity can be seen by the self‐designed stereo Imager or stereo glasses. This is just the beginning and this device can be extended into use in other medical subjects. Our 3D imaging technology has a promising future in the medical field due to the following qualities: its definition can reach to 5K ~ 8K, the color saturation and gray scale are never reduced, as well as the high magnification and brightness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The precise detection and segmentation of tumor lesions are very important for lung cancer computer-aided diagnosis. However, in PET/CT (Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography) lung images, the lesion shapes are complex, the edges are blurred, and the sample numbers are unbalanced. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a Multi-branch Cross-scale Interactive Feature fusion Transformer model (MCIF-Transformer Mask RCNN) for PET/CT lung tumor instance segmentation, The main innovative works of this paper are as follows: Firstly, the ResNet-Transformer backbone network is used to extract global feature and local feature in lung images. The pixel dependence relationship is established in local and non-local fields to improve the model perception ability. Secondly, the Cross-scale Interactive Feature Enhancement auxiliary network is designed to provide the shallow features to the deep features, and the cross-scale interactive feature enhancement module (CIFEM) is used to enhance the attention ability of the fine-grained features. Thirdly, the Cross-scale Interactive Feature fusion FPN network (CIF-FPN) is constructed to realize bidirectional interactive fusion between deep features and shallow features, and the low-level features are enhanced in deep semantic features. Finally, 4 ablation experiments, 3 comparison experiments of detection, 3 comparison experiments of segmentation and 6 comparison experiments with two-stage and single-stage instance segmentation networks are done on PET/CT lung medical image datasets. The results showed that APdet, APseg, ARdet and ARseg indexes are improved by 5.5%, 5.15%, 3.11% and 6.79% compared with Mask RCNN (resnet50). Based on the above research, the precise detection and segmentation of the lesion region are realized in this paper. This method has positive significance for the detection of lung tumors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. The percutaneous puncture lung mass biopsy procedure, which relies on preoperative CT (Computed Tomography) images, is considered the gold standard for determining the benign or malignant nature of lung masses. However, the traditional lung puncture procedure has several issues, including long operation times, a high probability of complications, and high exposure to CT radiation for the patient, as it relies heavily on the surgeon's clinical experience. Approach. To address these problems, a multi-constrained objective optimization model based on clinical criteria for the percutaneous puncture lung mass biopsy procedure has been proposed. Additionally, based on fuzzy optimization, a multidimensional spatial Pareto front algorithm has been developed for optimal path selection. The algorithm finds optimal paths, which are displayed on 3D images, and provides reference points for clinicians' surgical path planning. Main results. To evaluate the algorithm's performance, 25 data sets collected from the Second People's Hospital of Zigong were used for prospective and retrospective experiments. The results demonstrate that 92% of the optimal paths generated by the algorithm meet the clinicians' surgical needs. Significance. The algorithm proposed in this paper is innovative in the selection of mass target point, the integration of constraints based on clinical standards, and the utilization of multi-objective optimization algorithm. Comparison experiments have validated the better performance of the proposed algorithm. From a clinical standpoint, the algorithm proposed in this paper has a higher clinical feasibility of the proposed pathway than related studies, which reduces the dependency of the physician's expertise and clinical experience on pathway planning during the percutaneous puncture lung mass biopsy procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The 22-item Sinonasal Outcome Test (SNOT-22) is a trusted measure of symptom severity in chronic rhinosinusitis. The European Position Paper on Rhinosinusitis (EPOS) provides widely accepted diagnostic criteria, which include sinonasal symptoms, their duration, and imaging results. Our objective was to compare these approaches to assessing symptoms to determine if either was more indicative of radiologic findings, to support decisions in telehealth. Study Design: Observational outcomes study. Setting: Tertiary care center. Methods: In total, 162 consecutive patients provided a structured sinonasal history, completed the SNOT-22, and underwent sinus computed tomography (CT) within 1 month. SNOT-22 scores, EPOS-defined symptom sets, and Lund-Mackay results were assessed. To facilitate direct comparisons, we performed stepwise evaluations of sinonasal symptoms alone and combined with duration. The discriminatory capacity for imaging results was determined through areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC-AUC) for dichotomous outcomes and ordinal regression for multilevel outcomes. Results: In ROC-AUC analyses, SNOT-22 and EPOS-defined symptoms had similar discriminatory capacity for Lund-Mackay scores, regardless of duration. Within ordinal regression analyses, SNOT-22 nasal scores were significantly associated with Lund-Mackay scores, while EPOS-defined nasal symptoms were not statistically significantly related. Conclusions: SNOT-22 nasal scores and EPOS-defined nasal symptoms may have similar associations with imaging results when assessed via ROC-AUC, while SNOT-22 may have more association within ordinal data. Understanding the implications of discrete patterns of symptoms may confer benefit, particularly when in-person and fiberoptic exams are limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Though recognized as a risk factor, posterior glenoid bone loss has only recently been characterized and is distinctly different than anterior glenoid bone loss patterns. Existing biomechanical studies are limited by employment of anterior glenoid bone loss models which are different in both orientation and morphology than posterior glenoid bone loss, and testing in a single neutral arm position thus not fully accounting for the contribution of capsuloligamentous structures in various at-risk arm positions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the biomechanical effectiveness of a posterior labral repair in the setting of a clinically relevant bone loss model using 3-dimensional computed tomography modeling of patients with recurrent posterior shoulder instability in various at-risk arm positions. Methods: Ten fresh-frozen cadaveric shoulders (mean age: 55.4 years, range: 39-65) were prepared by removing all tissue except the capsule and distal rotator cuff insertions. A joint coordinate frame was established, the specimens were potted, then mounted to a customized fixture on 6-degrees-of-freedom robotic arm. A posterior labral tear was created, then repaired with 3 horizontal mattress sutures and secured by drilling 6 transosseous holes along the peripheral glenoid face exiting the anterior glenoid neck. The sutures were secured for the labral repair states to the mounted fixture under maximal tension and released for the labral tear states and for creating the sequential bone loss models. Bone loss models were created based off a cohort of CT data on patients undergoing revision posterior labral repair surgery to develop 2 clinically relevant 3D models of glenoid bone loss: the first simulating the mean bone loss in this cohort and represented 7% or small bone loss; the second was the mean + 2SD representing 28% or large bone loss. The bone loss was created on each specimen with a 3mm round burr to match each respective 3D printed template (Figure 1). Each specimen was tested in 7 consecutive states: (1) native anatomy, (2) posterior labral tear (6-9 o'clock), (3) posterior labral repair, (4) mean posterior glenoid bone loss with labral tear, (5) mean posterior glenoid bone loss with labral repair, (6) large posterior glenoid bone loss with labral tear, and (7) large posterior glenoid bone loss with labral repair. Each state underwent 75N of posterior-inferior force and 75N of compression during the four tests at 60 and 90 degrees of flexion and 60 and 90 degrees of scaption. Posterior-inferior translation, lateral translation, and dislocation force were measured for each condition. Statistical analysis was performed using two-factor random-intercepts linear mixed-effects models. Results: Compared to the labral tear state, significant increases in dislocation forces occurred with labral repair independent of bone loss state or arm position with values as follows: 14.8N (60° scaption), 12.2N (90° scaption), 11.1N (60° flexion), and 10.1N (90° flexion) with mean 12.1 ± 2.0N across all arm positions (Figure 2). Dislocation force significantly decreased between no bone loss and small bone loss (mean 12.4 ± 0.7N) and between small bone loss and large bone loss (mean 11.8 ± 2.1N) regardless of labral state in all arm positions (table 1). Posterior-inferior translation significantly decreased with labral repair compared to labral tear states independent of bone loss state in all arm positions (Table 1). Lateral translation of the humeral head significant increased when the labrum was repaired independent of bone loss state in all arm positions except 90° scaption and decreased progressively in all bone loss states in all arm positions (table 1). In the native state, the shoulder significantly translated posterior-inferior in scaption at 60° and 90° elevation compared to flexion (p<0.017) and was most unstable in 60° scaption with 29.9 ± 6.1mm posterior-inferior translation (Figure 3). Conclusions: This is the first study to biomechanically evaluate posterior glenoid bone loss using a clinical model in various at-risk arm positions on a 6 degree-of-freedom robot and through a precise linear effects model has established values for the increase in dislocation force posterior labral repair provides regardless of bone loss. The most significant finding of the study is that independent of bone loss, labral repair reduced posterior dislocation forces by 12.1 ± 2.0N and significantly decreased posterior-inferior translation. With a mean decrease in dislocation force of 12.4 ± 0.7N with small (7%) bone loss, labral repair alone may be enough to restore shoulder stability in most individuals. However, significant increases in posterior bone loss may require bony augmentation for adequate stability based on individual factors such as age and activity level. Table 1. Summary of statistically significance among modeled effects for labrum state and bone loss state. Separate linear mixed-effects models were constructed for each combination shoulder position, elevation and measurement. Numeric results reflect the estimated effect of moving from State A -> State B, as indicated in the column header. Up arrows indicate an increasing effect in the measure of interest, while down arrows indicate a decreasing effect, n.s. represents not statistically significant. Figure 2. Bar plots indicating mean and standard deviation values, stratified by shoulder position, elevation, and experimental status of the labrum and glenoid bone loss. Figure 3. Linear mixed-effects model estimates for shoulder position and elevation upon posterior inferior translation among native shoulders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Valvular regurgitation represents an important cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Imaging is pivotal in the evaluation of native valve regurgitation and echocardiography is the primary imaging modality for this purpose. The imaging assessment of valvular regurgitation should integrate quantification of the regurgitation, assessment of the valve anatomy and function, and the consequences of valvular disease on cardiac chambers. In clinical practice, the management of patients with valvular regurgitation largely relies on the results of imaging. It is crucial to provide standards that aim at establishing a baseline list of measurements to be performed when assessing native valve regurgitation. The present document aims to present clinical guidance for the multi-modality imaging assessment of native valvular regurgitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A core lesion in the pastern was significantly more likely to be associated with injury in the foot than other types of pastern lesion. Distal DDFT lesions were found in 75% of cases of pastern DDF tendinopathy and in 97% of cases with core lesions of the DDFT in the pastern. I In this retrospective study, i Elizabeth Acutt and co-workers I in the USA assessed pathological changes within the deep digital flexor tendon (DDFT) in the pastern with concurrent tendon injury to determine whether tendon lesions in the pastern are associated with tendinopathy within the hoof capsule. i Cases with DDFT lesions in the pastern diagnosed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or ultrasonography of the foot were evaluated. [Extracted from the article]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was crucial for the healthcare sector to detect and classify the virus using X-ray and CT scans. This has underlined the need for advanced Deep Learning and Machine Learning approaches to effectively spot and manage the virus's spread. Indeed, researchers worldwide have dynamically participated in the field by publishing an important number of papers across various databases. In this context, we present a bibliometric analysis focused on the detection and classification of COVID-19 using Deep Learning and Machine Learning techniques, based on X-Ray and CT images. We analyzed published documents of the six prominent databases (IEEE Xplore, ACM, MDPI, PubMed, Springer, and ScienceDirect) during the period between 2019 and November 2023. Our results showed that rising forces in economy and technology, especially India, China, Turkey, and Pakistan, began to compete with the great powers in the field of scientific research, which could be seen from their number of publications. Moreover, researchers contributed to Deep Learning techniques more than the use of Machine Learning techniques or the use of both together and preferred to submit their works to Springer Database. An important result was that more than 57% documents were published as Journal Articles, which was an important portion compared to other publication types (conference papers and book chapters). Moreover, the PubMed journal Multimedia Tools and Applications' tops the list of journals with a total of 29 published articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, radiotherapy based only on Magnetic Resonance (MR) images has become a hot spot for radiotherapy planning research in the current medical field. However, functional computed tomography (CT) is still needed for dose calculation in the clinic. Recent deep-learning approaches to synthesized CT images from MR images have raised much research interest, making radiotherapy based only on MR images possible. In this paper, we proposed a novel unsupervised image synthesis framework with registration networks. This paper aims to enforce the constraints between the reconstructed image and the input image by registering the reconstructed image with the input image and registering the cycle-consistent image with the input image. Furthermore, this paper added ConvNeXt blocks to the network and used large kernel convolutional layers to improve the network's ability to extract features. This research used the collected head and neck data of 180 patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma to experiment and evaluate the training model with four evaluation metrics. At the same time, this research made a quantitative comparison of several commonly used model frameworks. We evaluate the model performance in four evaluation metrics which achieve Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), and Structural Similarity (SSIM) are 18.55±1.44, 86.91±4.31, 33.45 ± 0.74 and 0.960 ± 0.005, respectively. Compared with other methods, MAE decreased by 2.17, RMSE decreased by 7.82, PSNR increased by 0.76, and SSIM increased by 0.011. The results show that the model proposed in this paper outperforms other methods in the quality of image synthesis. The work in this paper is of guiding significance to the study of MR-only radiotherapy planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report describes The University of Texas Student Cluster Competition team’s effort to reproduce the results of “MemXCT: memory-centric X-ray CT reconstruction with massive parallelization” (Hidayetoğlu et al., 2019). The article details a new memory-centric approach that reconstructs X-ray computed tomography (XCT) from noisy raw data. In our reproduction experiments, we utilized Microsoft Azure’s CycleCloud tool to provision, orchestrate, and manage our computing cluster in the cloud. In particular, we scheduled and benchmarked reconstruction workloads using Azure’s CPU-based HC44rs and GPU-based NC12s v2 virtual machine (VM) types to evaluate the scalability properties of the reconstruction approach and the performance differences between architectures. The HC44rs VMs contained 44 Intel Xeon Platinum cores, while the NC12s v2 VM was equipped with two NVIDIA P100 GPUs. We used a recent version of Intel’s compiler stack with the MKL library for our CPU code along with CUDA 11.1 on GPUs. Overall, our results confirm the findings of the original article, demonstrating similar acceleration on GPUs and scalability properties on CPUs. Digital artifacts from these experiments are available at: 10.5281/zenodo.5598108 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiac computed tomography (CT) was initially developed as a non-invasive diagnostic tool to detect and quantify coronary stenosis. Thanks to the rapid technological development, cardiac CT has become a comprehensive imaging modality which offers anatomical and functional information to guide patient management. This is the second of two complementary documents endorsed by the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging aiming to give updated indications on the appropriate use of cardiac CT in different clinical scenarios. In this article, emerging CT technologies and biomarkers, such as CT-derived fractional flow reserve, perfusion imaging, and pericoronary adipose tissue attenuation, are described. In addition, the role of cardiac CT in the evaluation of atherosclerotic plaque, cardiomyopathies, structural heart disease, and congenital heart disease is revised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lung cancer is the most frequently fatal cancer, with poor survival once the disease is advanced. Annual low-dose computed tomography has shown a survival benefit in screening individuals at high risk for lung cancer. Based on the available evidence, the European Society of Radiology and the European Respiratory Society recommend lung cancer screening in comprehensive, quality-assured, longitudinal programmes within a clinical trial or in routine clinical practice at certified multidisciplinary medical centres. Minimum requirements include: standardised operating procedures for low-dose image acquisition, computer-assisted nodule evaluation, and positive screening results and their management; inclusion/exclusion criteria; expectation management; and smoking cessation programmes. Further refinements are recommended to increase quality, outcome and cost-effectiveness of lung cancer screening: inclusion of risk models, reduction of effective radiation dose, computer-assisted volumetric measurements and assessment of comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and vascular calcification). All these requirements should be adjusted to the regional infrastructure and healthcare system, in order to exactly define eligibility using a risk model, nodule management and a quality assurance plan. The establishment of a central registry, including a biobank and an image bank, and preferably on a European level, is strongly encouraged. Key points: • Lung cancer screening using low dose computed tomography reduces mortality. • Leading US medical societies recommend large scale screening for high-risk individuals. • There are no lung cancer screening recommendations or reimbursed screening programmes in Europe as of yet. • The European Society of Radiology and the European Respiratory Society recommend lung cancer screening within a clinical trial or in routine clinical practice at certified multidisciplinary medical centres. • High risk, eligible individuals should be enrolled in comprehensive, quality-controlled longitudinal programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atherosclerotic plaques prone to rupture may cause acute myocardial infarction (MI) but can also heal without causing an event. Certain common histopathological features, including inflammation, a thin fibrous cap, positive remodelling, a large necrotic core, microcalcification, and plaque haemorrhage are commonly found in plaques causing an acute event. Recent advances in imaging techniques have made it possible to detect not only luminal stenosis and overall coronary atherosclerosis burden but also to identify such adverse plaque characteristics. However, the predictive value of identifying individual adverse atherosclerotic plaques for future events has remained poor. In this Position Paper, the relationship between vulnerable plaque imaging and MI is addressed, mainly for non-invasive assessments but also for invasive imaging of adverse plaques in patients undergoing invasive coronary angiography. Dynamic changes in atherosclerotic plaque development and composition may indicate that an adverse plaque phenotype should be considered at the patient level rather than for individual plaques. Imaging of adverse plaque burden throughout the coronary vascular tree, in combination with biomarkers and biomechanical parameters, therefore holds promise for identifying subjects at increased risk of MI and for guiding medical and invasive treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the respondents assist horses during recovery, with 23% assisting every recovery and 44% assisting recovery in the majority of cases. The incidences of unacceptable quality of recovery or personnel injury were not different between assisted and nonassisted recoveries; however, more equine fatalities were reported for assisted recoveries. I In this controlled experimental trial, i Victoria Lyons and co-workers I in the USA evaluated the effect of amniotic membrane extract on re-epithelialisation of experimentally induced corneal ulcers in 10 healthy horses i . [Extracted from the article]

The purposes of this study were as follows: (1) to radiolabel ibandronic acid (IBA, a third‐generation bisphosphonate) with 177Lu, investigating optimal labeling conditions, and (2) to analyze biodistribution and imaging properties of intravenous 177Lu‐ibandronate (177Lu‐IBA) administered in animals. 177Lu‐labeled methylene diphosphonate (177Lu‐MDP) served as a comparator agent. Differing proportions of IBA solution and 177LuCl3 solution were combined to determine an optimal ratio for radiolabeling purposes, varying pH, temperature, and time to establish ideal reactivity conditions. Radiochemical purity of the labeled compounds was then assessed by paper chromatography. In vitro and in vivo stabilities were also measured at specific time intervals. In Kunming mice, biodistributions of 177Lu‐IBA and 177Lu‐MDP and respective agent activities in various organs were monitored by gamma counter, and we performed single photon computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) imaging of 177Lu‐IBA in normal New Zealand White rabbits. Radiolabeling yields for 177Lu‐IBA proved to be >97% within 30 minutes at 90°C, and its radiochemical purity ensured stability in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, we found that 177Lu‐IBA is readily soluble in water, showing higher skeletal uptake than 177Lu‐MDP but lower uptake by liver and spleen. The image quality of 177Lu‐IBA was so clear that even after 6 days, analysis was still feasible. To develop a new efficient and safe bone‐seeking radiopharmaceutical, 177Lu‐ibandronate, for bone pain palliation, which could be used for the purposes of both treatment and monitoring of the patient's condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convolution Neural Networks (CNN) can quickly diagnose COVID-19 patients by analyzing computed tomography (CT) images of the lung, thereby effectively preventing the spread of COVID-19. However, the existing CNN-based COVID-19 diagnosis models do consider the problem that the lung images of COVID-19 patients in the early stage and incubation period are extremely similar to those of the non-COVID-19 population. Which reduces the model's classification sensitivity, resulting in a higher probability of the model misdiagnosing COVID-19 patients as non-COVID-19 people. To solve the problem, this paper first attempts to apply triplet loss and center loss to the field of COVID-19 image classification, combining softmax loss to design a jointly supervised metric loss function COVID Triplet-Center Loss (COVID-TCL). Triplet loss can increase inter-class discreteness, and center loss can improve intra-class compactness. Therefore, COVID-TCL can help the CNN-based model to extract more discriminative features and strengthen the diagnostic capacity of COVID-19 patients in the early stage and incubation period. Meanwhile, we use the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) as a classifier to design a COVID-19 images classification model of CNN-XGBoost architecture, to further improve the CNN-based model's classification effect and operation efficiency. The experiment shows that the classification accuracy of the model proposed in this paper is 97.41%, and the sensitivity is 97.61%, which is higher than the other 7 reference models. The COVID-TCL can effectively improve the classification sensitivity of the CNN-based model, the CNN-XGBoost architecture can further improve the CNN-based model's classification effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To test and validate novel CT techniques, such as texture analysis in radiomics, repeat measurements are required. Current anthropomorphic phantoms lack fine texture and true anatomic representation. 3D‐printing of iodinated ink on paper is a promising phantom manufacturing technique. Previously acquired or artificially created CT data can be used to generate realistic phantoms. Purpose: To present the design process of an anthropomorphic 3D‐printed iodine ink phantom, highlighting the different advantages and pitfalls in its use. To analyze the phantom's X‐ray attenuation properties, and the influences of the printing process on the imaging characteristics, by comparing it to the original input dataset. Methods: Two patient CT scans and artificially generated test patterns were combined in a single dataset for phantom printing and cropped to a size of 26 × 19 × 30 cm3. This DICOM dataset was printed on paper using iodinated ink. The phantom was CT‐scanned and compared to the original image dataset used for printing the phantom. The water‐equivalent diameter of the phantom was compared to that of a patient cohort (N = 104). Iodine concentrations in the phantom were measured using dual‐energy CT. 86 radiomics features were extracted from 10 repeat phantom scans and the input dataset. Features were compared using a histogram analysis and a PCA individually and overall, respectively. The frequency content was compared using the normalized spectrum modulus. Results: Low density structures are depicted incorrectly, while soft tissue structures show excellent visual accordance with the input dataset. Maximum deviations of around 30 HU between the original dataset and phantom HU values were observed. The phantom has X‐ray attenuation properties comparable to a lightweight adult patient (∼54 kg, BMI 19 kg/m2). Iodine concentrations in the phantom varied between 0 and 50 mg/ml. PCA of radiomics features shows different tissue types separate in similar areas of PCA representation in the phantom scans as in the input dataset. Individual feature analysis revealed systematic shift of first order radiomics features compared to the original dataset, while some higher order radiomics features did not. The normalized frequency modulus |f(ω)| of the phantom data agrees well with the original data. However, all frequencies systematically occur more frequently in the phantom compared to the maximum of the spectrum modulus than in the original data set, especially for mid‐frequencies (e.g., for ω = 0.3942 mm−1, |f(ω)|original = 0.09 * |fmax|original and |f(ω)|phantom = 0.12 * |fmax|phantom). Conclusions: 3D‐iodine‐ink‐printing technology can be used to print anthropomorphic phantoms with a water‐equivalent diameter of a lightweight adult patient. Challenges include small residual air enclosures and the fidelity of HU values. For soft tissue, there is a good agreement between the HU values of the phantom and input data set. Radiomics texture features of the phantom scans are similar to the input data set, but systematic shifts of radiomics features in first order features, due to differences in HU values, need to be considered. The paper substrate influences the spatial frequency distribution of the phantom scans. This phantom type is of very limited use for dual‐energy CT analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Complex multifragmentary fractures of the pelvis and lower limb are a major challenge for operative orthopaedic surgery. The successful metallic osteosynthesis of the fractures requires an extensive planning process, which can be dramatically improved with the 3D printed anatomical models -- replicas of the bones with high fidelity generated from CT and MRI imaging studies. The models represent the spatial properties of the skeleton with a dimensional error of approximately 8 μm/mm. They can be manufactured easily and with high reproducibility with commercial or open-access software and FDM 3D printing. Orthopaedic surgeons use the preoperative models as a highly accurate physical model of complex fractures and allow them to choose and prepare the optimal operation window, surgical tools, metallic implants, and as a template for recontouring (pre-bending) of fixation plates, which will be used during the surgery. The approach provides a new level of personalisation in operative orthopaedic surgery and significantly reduces the duration of the operation, the amount of blood loss and the intraoperative X-rays. The proper anatomical repositioning of the fracture is achieved at a higher rate in the surgeries, which are planned with 3D-printed anatomical models. The planning of surgical operations with 3D-printed models increases the overall effectiveness of the surgery, reduces the rate of post-surgical complications, and allows for a patient-specific approach. The paper will describe the methods for manufacturing accurate 3D-printed anatomical models representing complex fractures and their application for preoperative planning of orthopaedic operation. Design/methodology/approach: The anatomical 3D models were generated from CT datasets with open-access medical informatics software (3D Slicer) and 3D printed on an FDM 3D printer with minimal thermal deformation (Polylactate, PLA). The finished models were used for preoperative planning of complex orthopaedic operations, including high-energy multifragmentary hip, knee and ankle fractures. The preoperative planning included selecting surgical access, preparing tools and implants, and contouring (pre-bending) metal plates for metallic osteosynthesis. Several parameters, such as operation time, blood loss, intraoperative X-rays, and the achievement of anatomical reduction of the fractures, were observed in order to measure the quality of the operations. Findings: Accurate anthropomorphic 3D models representing the spatial properties of the bones can be generated from tomographic imaging studies easily and accurately, even with open-source software. They can be utilised as a tool for preoperatively planning complex orthopaedical operations of the lower limb. Using 3D-printed models allows a patient-specific approach, which leads to good anatomical reduction and favourable functional results in complex surgeries regarding the pelvis, acetabulum, tibial plateau, and calcaneus. Practical implications: The methods described in the paper are routinely used for the preoperative planning of complex orthopaedical operations regarding the lower limb. In the future, they will be combined with the implementation of 3D-printed personalised titanium implants to achieve good anatomical reduction even for the most challenging multigragmental fractures. Originality/value: In the paper, we described the technical aspects and clinical considerations for the preoperative planning of complex orthopaedical operations, which can assist engineers and clinicians alike in implementing the useful method in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About five million people lose their lives every year to lung cancer, making it one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. In the last few years, a lot of methods of detection of lung cancer were improved however these could not efficiently diagnose cancer. In this paper, a convolutional neural network (CNN) of robust deep learning is developed. CNN precision raises the deeper that is, however, it causes overfitting or vanishing gradient problems simultaneously. To solve the issue, the CNN used resort to parallel CNN. It used Pictures the LIDC-IDRI consortium image collection has thoracic CT images that have been annotated for lung cancer diagnosis and screening purposes. The presented model includes result models of CNN which are integrated via ensemble methods and it compare with every model. Results of the simulation illustrate that the presented method's accuracy has developed by 2.18 percent in comparison with the method of the main paper [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key Clinical Message: The phenomenon of vessel pedicle ossification is a noteworthy aspect of the repair and reconstruction of maxillofacial defects. Imaging findings typically reveal high‐density shadows within the vascular pedicle pathway, which may be managed through conservative observation or surgical intervention as deemed appropriate. Vessel pedicle ossification is a relatively uncommon complication associated with the reconstruction of oral and maxillofacial tissue defects using free tissue flap repair. In this paper, we report a case of pedicle ossification and conduct a comprehensive review of previous literature. A 39‐year‐old man presented with a limited ability to open his mouth 6 months after fibular flap reconstruction of the mandible. Plain film X‐ray and computed tomography (CT) indicated pedicle ossification. Two years after the initial operation, the restriction in the patient's ability to open his mouth had not worsened, although there were more pronounced radiographic abnormalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]