Digital Radiography News

Neuroscientists Xu L, Wu X, et al. at the College of Information Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China provide evidence that discrimination between patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can be improved via extending a multi-modality algorithm associated with multi-modality use. In their study published in the journal: Comput Methods Programs Biomed, 2015, a well-developed method in pattern recognition and machine learning, termed ‘sparse representation-based classification (SRC) was applied to a multi-modality classification framework named the ‘weighted multi-modality SRC (wmSRC).  The data from the latter system includes three modalities of volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) and florbetapir PET previously used to classify AD/MCI patients. What was found was that using this expanded algorithm an accuracy of 94.8 was achieved for AD versus controls, 74.5% for MCI versus controls, and 77.8 percent for progressive MCI versus stable MCI.  These values are reported to be superior or comparable with results of other current models used in other recent multi-modality research. The complete article is available at:  Elsevier Ireland Ltd. And Comput Methods Programs Biomed. 2015 Aug 10. pii: S0169-2607(15)00201-1. doi: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2015.08.004. [Epub ahead of ... Read more

A recent pilot study suggests that MRI assessment may be useful in defining pancreatic inflammation that is associated with type 1 diabetes.  The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and authored by researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center, involved the use of coated iron nanoparticle approved by the FDA as an iron replacement therapy: ferumoxytol.  It is useful for this purpose because it leaks out of blood vessels when inflammation is present and then is taken up by the macrophages involved in the inflammatory process which is autoimmune in nature.  MRI assessment may provide additional information in addition to blood tests for autoantibodies which are now used to mark the possibility of disease. As explained by Jason Gaglia, MD, MMSc, one of the investigators in the section of immunobiology at Joslin: “"Many people have genetic variants that put them at risk for type 1 diabetes", but there is, at present, no perfect marker for predicting whether someone will develop full-blown diabetes.  Another way in which MRI assessment may be useful is in following possible progression of inflammation to autoimmune disease.  Instead of years of measurements, Gaglia states that “you could have an answer in a matter of months. This pilot study involved a limited number of subjects – 11 patients and 10 controls so will need to be repeated with larger numbers before the evidence can be considered reliable and valid, particularly since inflammation was observed to vary across the pancreas between and within individuals.  But the authors believe that this imaging technique utilizing Ferumoxytol-MRI could have a many applications in diabetes research and improve the understanding of the natural history of type 1 diabetes.  It may also have clinical applicability in screening certain individuals susceptible to disease.  See more at: ... Read more

Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Hyunjoon Kong, graduate student and member of the Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering research theme at the Institute for Genomic Biology, Cartney Smith, and colleagues made it a ... Read more

A study released on concussion patients employing diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) discovered that males took longer to recover following a concussion than females did. Results of the study, which demonstrate that DTI can be used as a bias-free way to ... Read more

More men who are under the impression that they have low-risk prostate cancers are opting for active surveillance, abandoning treatment and observing the cancer closely with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests, digital rectal exams, and ... Read more

Researchers from The University of Manchester, a branch of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre, have verified the potential of a drug that enhances the overall effectiveness of radiotherapy in halting tumor growth and progression. Utilizing the ... Read more

Based on new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, researchers have further enhanced a brain scanning technology that follows what the brain is doing by illuminating dozens of microscopic LED lights on the head. This new ... Read more

Based on a new study conducted by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, experimenting with a molecular pathway that dictates how intestinal cells react to stress can in fact aid mice in surviving an otherwise fatal dose of ... Read more

A study recently published in the May 2014 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine sought to determine whether an EGFR-targeted therapy in accordance with chemo-radiotherapy can in fact improve local tumor control effectively, as opposed to ... Read more

Based on a Kaiser Permanente study published online in JAMA Dermatology, radiation treatment could help lead to a decrease in the recurrence of Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive skin cancer, while chemotherapy appears to have no lasting impact or effect on the disease's recurrence or patient survival. Kaiser Permanente can carry out transformational health research in part due to it having the largest private patient-centered electronic health system in the world. The institution's electronic health record system, Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect®, safely connects 9.1 million patients to more than 16,000 physicians in almost 600 medical offices and 37 hospitals. It also links Kaiser Permanente's research scientists to one of the most wide-ranging collections of longitudinal medical data available, smoothing the progress of studies and important medical discoveries that shape the future of health and care delivery for patients and the medical community. The study showcases one of the biggest single-institution datasets on Merkel cell carcinoma, which is contracted in approximately 1,500 people in the United States year round. Most such cancers come about on the sun-exposed skin of Caucasian males and are usually first diagnosed at age 75. Using the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Cancer Registry, the researchers discovered that out of 218 cases of Kaiser Permanente patients who had Merkel cell carcinoma, those who had radiation treatment had a 70 percent lower risk of disease recurrence whereas those treated with chemotherapy did not appear to have any impact on recurrence or survival. "We used our database to show what characteristics impact recurrence and survival in this very rare cancer. The electronic records allowed us to identify patients with Merkel cell carcinoma, see how they were diagnosed and treated, and then follow them over time to see how their care affected their outcomes," said the study's lead author Maryam M. Asgari, MD, MPH, of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. Using an electronic health record system, Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect®, authorized the researchers to assess the relationships between cancer recurrence and survival with demographic information (age, sex, race, immunosuppression) and tumor porperties (extent, size and location), in addition to cancer work-ups (pathologic lymph node evaluation, imaging) and treatments (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy). The study results also revealed that immunosuppression and more advanced tumors were linked with worse survival rates related to Merkel cell carcinoma, and that pathological assessment of the patient's lymph nodes also had a considerable influence on results. Asgari commented that the success of different work-up and treatment procedures has been hard to compare for rare cancers. "This research should help dermatologists and oncologists in caring for their patients with Merkel cell carcinomas," she ... Read more

Based on a recent study, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital may have discovered a possible solution for how to effectively kill tumor cells using cancer-killing viruses. The researchers note that ... Read more

A new technique enables calcified and constricted blood vessels to be visualized with micrometer accuracy, and can be utilized to create containers for targeted drug delivery. Within the project "NO-stress," materials researchers from the Medical Faculty of the University of Basel merged state of the art imaging techniques to visualize and measure the constrictions caused by atherosclerosis. Cardiovascular diseases, including atherosclerosis, are linked with plaque formation and the most common cause of death around the world. Yet, unlike vessels and other soft tissues, the plaque formed offer a strong contrast in X-rays, as known from bone. Thus far, it has been arduous or even impracticable to distinguish soft tissues in the direct vicinity of calcifications using X-rays. A team of researchers from laboratories in three European countries, led by Bert Müller (Biomaterials Science Center at University of Basel), have designed and developed a procedure that is predicated on the mixture of hard X-ray tomography and proven histology methods, to visualize the vessels constricted by atherosclerosis. The data regarding the morphology of the constricted vessels is utilized to reproduce blood flow and discover related shear stresses. The shear stress is considerably enhanced at the constrictions and makes up the basis for the development of specialized nano-containers for the targeted and local delivery of vasodilation drugs. The new technique molds and merges known approaches and is not only appropriate for the three-dimensional characterization of atherosclerotic blood vessels but also for any other combination of strongly and weakly X-ray absorbing species including cartilage and bone. It makes good use of standard X-ray absorption and, additionally, of X-ray phase contrast measurements, which are for instance available through grating interferometry. As the phase contrast is much less reliant on the atomic number of the constituents than the absorption contrast, the soft tissues in the neighborhood of hard tissues become much more easily and effectively visualized. In short, the authors showcase that strongly calcified arteries are methodically characterized by the combination of the non-destructive tomography measurements in X-ray absorption and phase contrast modes, and proven histology techniques. The project "NO-stress" is funded within the National Research Programme NRP 62 "Smart Materials" by the Swiss National Science ... Read more