Search Our Scientific Publications & Authors

Sichuan Da Xue Xue Bao Yi Xue Ban 2021 Mar;52(2):311-318

Department of Radiology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.

Obejective: To explore the clinical value of using radiomics models based on different MRI sequences in the assessment of hepatic metastasis of rectal cancer.

Methods: 140 patients with pathologically confirm edrectal cancer were included in the study. They underwent baseline magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) between April 2015 and May 2018 before receiving any treatment. Read More

Biomed Eng Online 2021 Apr 6;20(1):34. Epub 2021 Apr 6.

Department of Mathematics, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China.

Background: Coronary plaque vulnerability prediction is difficult because plaque vulnerability is non-trivial to quantify, clinically available medical image modality is not enough to quantify thin cap thickness, prediction methods with high accuracies still need to be developed, and gold-standard data to validate vulnerability prediction are often not available. Patient follow-up intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), optical coherence tomography (OCT) and angiography data were acquired to construct 3D fluid-structure interaction (FSI) coronary models and four machine-learning methods were compared to identify optimal method to predict future plaque vulnerability.

Methods: Baseline and 10-month follow-up in vivo IVUS and OCT coronary plaque data were acquired from two arteries of one patient using IRB approved protocols with informed consent obtained. Read More

Comput Methods Programs Biomed 2021 Mar 21;204:106059. Epub 2021 Mar 21.

Department of Electronics, Information and Biomedical engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy; Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Elettronica e di Ingegneria dell'Informazione e delle Telecomunicazioni, Milan, Italy. Electronic address:

Background And Objective: Segmentation of the left ventricular (LV) myocardium (Myo) and RV endocardium on cine cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) images represents an essential step for cardiac-function evaluation and diagnosis. In order to have a common reference for comparing segmentation algorithms, several CMR image datasets were made available, but in general they do not include the most apical and basal slices, and/or gold standard tracing is limited to only one of the two ventricles, thus not fully corresponding to real clinical practice. Our aim was to develop a deep learning (DL) approach for automated segmentation of both RV and LV chambers from short-axis (SAX) CMR images, reporting separately the performance for basal slices, together with the applied criterion of choice. Read More

Int J Mol Sci 2021 Mar 13;22(6). Epub 2021 Mar 13.

Department of Animal Anatomy and Physiology, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Oczapowskiego 1A, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland.

An electromagnetic field (EMF) may affect the functions of uterine tissues. This study hypothesized that EMF changes the estrogenic activity of pig myometrium during the peri-implantation period. Tissue was collected on days 15-16 of the gestation and incubated in the presence of EMF (50 and 120 Hz, 2 and 4 h). Read More

J Prosthet Dent 2021 Mar 6. Epub 2021 Mar 6.

Professor, Department of Prosthodontics and Periodontics, Bauru Dental School, University of São Paulo (USP), Bauru, Brazil.

Statement Of Problem: Although the 2D analysis of prosthesis cementation space has been popular, its correlation with volumetric comparison (3D data) of cement space is unclear.

Purpose: The purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate the cement space in computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD-CAM) crowns of different materials and correlate 2D measurements of cement space with their corresponding 3D values (volume of cement space) by using microcomputed tomography (μCT) analysis of regions of interest.

Material And Methods: Ten molar crowns were milled in lithium disilicate (LD), resin nanoceramic (RN), and zirconia (Z) ceramics. Read More

Brain 2021 Apr;144(3):800-816

Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences, The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.

Axonal injury is a major contributor to the clinical symptomatology in patients with traumatic brain injury. Conventional neuroradiological tools, such as CT and MRI, are insensitive to diffuse axonal injury (DAI) caused by trauma. Diffusion tensor MRI parameters may change in DAI lesions; however, the nature of these changes is inconsistent. Read More

Ann Transl Med 2021 Feb;9(4):279

Department of Diagnostic Radiology, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.

Background: To investigate the influence of slice thickness on radiomic feature (RF) values in solid pulmonary nodules and evaluate the effect of a linear interpolation method in correcting the influence.

Methods: Thirty pulmonary nodules from 28 patients were selected prospectively with a thick-slice of 5 mm and a thin-slice of 1.25 mm on CT. Read More

Exp Cell Res 2021 Apr 4;401(2):112527. Epub 2021 Mar 4.

School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. Electronic address:

Metastasis is the leading cause of mortality in cancer patients. To migrate to distant sites, cancer cells would need to adapt their behaviour in response to different tissue environments. Thus, it is essential to study this process in models that can closely replicate the tumour microenvironment. Read More

Food Res Int 2021 Feb 24;140:110003. Epub 2020 Dec 24.

Institute of Agriculture and Food Research and Technology (IRTA), Food Safety Programme, Finca Camps i Armet s/n, 17121 Monells, Spain. Electronic address:

Food safety is often based on the application of several preservative (hurdle) factors whose combination must be smartly selected. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of lactate and diacetate on the high pressure processing (HPP) inactivation of three L. monocytogenes strains (CTC1011, CTC1034 and Scott A) in sliced cooked ham. Read More

JMIR Med Inform 2021 Feb 10;9(2):e22164. Epub 2021 Feb 10.

Warwick Manufacturing Group, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.

Background: Myocardial infarction (MI; location and extent of infarction) can be determined by late enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging, which requires the injection of a potentially harmful gadolinium-based contrast agent (GBCA). Alternatively, emerging research in the area of myocardial strain has shown potential to identify MI using strain values.

Objective: This study aims to identify the location of MI by developing an applied algorithmic method of circumferential strain (CS) values, which are derived through a novel hierarchical template matching (HTM) method. Read More

Respir Res 2021 Feb 8;22(1):48. Epub 2021 Feb 8.

Department of Molecular Pharmacology, University of Groningen, Antonius Deusinglaan 1, 9713 AV, Groningen, The Netherlands.

Background: Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease in which the nervous system plays a central role. Sensory nerve activation, amongst others via Transient Receptor Potential Ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) channels, contributes to asthma characteristics including cough, bronchoconstriction, mucus secretion, airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and inflammation. In the current study, we evaluated the efficacy of the novel TRPA1 antagonist BI01305834 against AHR and inflammation in guinea-pig models of asthma. Read More

Med Phys 2021 Feb 5. Epub 2021 Feb 5.

Department of Biostatistics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, USA.

Purpose: Domain knowledge (DK) acquired from prior studies is important for medical diagnosis. This paper leverages the population-level DK using an optimality design criterion to train a deep learning model in an end-to-end manner. In this study, the problem of interest is at the patient level to diagnose a subject with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) among subjects with interstitial lung disease (ILD) using a computed tomography (CT). Read More

Shanghai Kou Qiang Yi Xue 2020 Oct;29(5):471-475

School of Medical Instrument and Food Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. Shanghai 200093, China.

Purpose: To compare the effects of different nickel-titanium rotary tapers on fracture strength of root canal and the application value of finite element analysis in root canal therapy.

Methods: Twenty four mandibular premolars were selected and all crowns were removed. All samples were randomly divided into 4 groups: A, B, C and D. Read More

Cancers (Basel) 2021 Feb 2;13(3). Epub 2021 Feb 2.

Interdisciplinary Research Institute of Grenoble, IRIG-Biosanté, University Grenoble Alpes, CEA, UMR 1292, F-38000 Grenoble, France.

Kinase-targeted agents demonstrate antitumor activity in advanced metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), which remains largely incurable. Integration of genomic approaches through small-molecules and genetically based high-throughput screening holds the promise of improved discovery of candidate targets for cancer therapy. The 786-O cell line represents a model for most ccRCC that have a loss of functional pVHL (von Hippel-Lindau). Read More

J Anat 2021 Feb 1. Epub 2021 Feb 1.

Department of Macroscopic Anatomy, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan.

The diaphysis of the human femoral bone has a physiological anterior curvature; additionally, there is a curvature to the medial side or lateral side. In addition to compression stress from gravity during standing, walking, and running, these bones are continuously exposed to complex stresses from the traction forces of the various strong muscles attached to them. The femoral diaphysis is subjected to these mechanical stresses, and the direction and size of its curvature are defined according to Wolff's law and the mechanostat theory of Frost. Read More

Anim Reprod Sci 2021 Mar 21;226:106694. Epub 2021 Jan 21.

Department of Animal Anatomy and Physiology, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Oczapowskiego Str. 1A, 10-719, Olsztyn, Poland. Electronic address:

An electromagnetic field (EMF) may have effects on female reproduction. This study was conducted to determine whether EMF [50 and 120 Hz, 2 and 4 h of incubation in the presence or absence of progesterone (P, 10 M)] affects androgen synthesis and release from the pig endometrium. Endometrial slices were collected from pigs (n = 5) during the fetal peri-implantation period (i. Read More

Med Phys 2021 Jan 15. Epub 2021 Jan 15.

Department of Bioengineering, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, 40208, USA.

Purpose: Accurate segmentation of retinal layers of the eye in 3D Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) data provides relevant information for clinical diagnosis. This manuscript describes a 3D segmentation approach that uses an adaptive patient-specific retinal atlas, as well as an appearance model for 3D OCT data.

Methods: To reconstruct the atlas of 3D retinal scan, the central area of the macula (macula mid-area) where the fovea could be clearly identified, was segmented initially. Read More

Biomed Phys Eng Express 2020 02 18;6(2):025009. Epub 2020 Feb 18.

Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, People's Republic of China.

Background: Magnetic resonance cine imaging is the accepted standard for cardiac functional assessment. Left ventricular (LV) segmentation plays a key role in volumetric functional quantification of the heart. Conventional manual analysis is time-consuming and observer-dependent. Read More

Abdom Radiol (NY) 2021 Jan 11. Epub 2021 Jan 11.

The Affiliated Suzhou Science & Technology Town Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Suzhou, 215163, China.

Objective: To evaluate the efficiency of CT-based peritumoral radiomics signatures of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) for malignancy grading in preoperative prediction.

Materials And Methods: 203 patients with pathologically confirmed as ccRCC were retrospectively enrolled in this study. All patients were categorized into training set (n = 122) and validation set (n = 81). Read More

Oral Radiol 2021 Jan 9. Epub 2021 Jan 9.

State Key Laboratory of CAD and CG, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.

Objectives: To segment the mandible from cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images efficiently and accurately for the 3D mandible model is essential for subsequent research and diagnosis.

Methods: This paper proposes a local region-based variational region growing algorithm, which integrates local region and shape prior to segment the mandible accurately. Firstly, we select initial seeds in the CBCT image and then calculate candidate point sets and the local region energy function of each point. Read More

Materials (Basel) 2020 Dec 30;14(1). Epub 2020 Dec 30.

Łukasiewicz Research Network, Łukasiewicz-Krakow Institute of Technology, 73 Zakopianska St., 30-418 Krakow, Poland.

The purpose of this work was to systematically assess the distribution of thermoluminescence (TL) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) properties along the length of crystals grown by the micro-pulling-down method, in relation to the microstructure and distribution of activators. We analyzed lithium magnesium phosphate (LiMgPO; LMP) crystals doped with terbium (Tb; 0.8 mol%) or with a combination of thulium (Tm; 0. Read More

Zhongguo Zhong Yao Za Zhi 2020 Nov;45(21):5209-5218

Nanjing Haiyuan Prepared Slices of Chinese Crude Drugs Company Nanjing 210061, China.

Licorice has long been regarded as one of the most popular herbs, with a very wide clinical application range. Whether being used alone or as an ingredient in prescription, it has an important role which cannot be ignored. However, the efficacy and chemical constituents of licorice will change after honey-processing. Read More

Front Oncol 2020 3;10:523860. Epub 2020 Dec 3.

Department of Tumor Biology, Norwegian Radium Hospital, Oslo, Norway.

Background: Previous studies have shown the value in studying lineage tracing in slices of human tumors. However, a tumor is not a two-dimensional structure and to better understand how a tumor, and its corresponding metastasis grow, a three-dimensional (3-D) view is necessary.

Results: Using somatic mitochondrial mutations as a marker for lineage tracing, it is possible to identify and follow tumor specific cell lineages. Read More

Exp Neurol 2021 Mar 16;337:113571. Epub 2020 Dec 16.

Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, 450 Clarkson Ave., Box 29, Brooklyn, NY 11203, USA; Program in Neural and Behavioral Science, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, 450 Clarkson Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11203, USA; The Robert F. Furchgott Center for Behavioral and Neural Science, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, 450 Clarkson Ave., Box 29, Brooklyn, NY 11203, USA. Electronic address:

This study examined the antiepileptogenic potential of the antiseizure drug (ASD) levetiracetam (LEV) using the in vitro traumatized-slice and in vivo controlled cortical impact (CCI) models of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in rats when administered early after the injury. For the in vitro model, acute coronal slices (400-450 μm) of rat neocortex (P21-32) were injured via a surgical cut that separated the superficial layers from the deeper regions. Persistent stimulus-evoked epileptiform activity developed within 1-2 h after trauma. Read More

Heliyon 2020 Dec 10;6(12):e05652. Epub 2020 Dec 10.

Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, UMR 5287, Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives d'Aquitaine (INCIA), Bordeaux, France.

Background: Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive loss of memory and general decline in cognitive functions. Multi-modal imaging such as structural MRI and DTI provide useful information for the classification of patients on the basis of brain biomarkers. Recently, CNN methods have emerged as powerful tools to improve classification using images. Read More

Med Phys 2021 Feb 30;48(2):733-744. Epub 2020 Dec 30.

Department of Radiation Oncology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, 9713 AV, Groningen, The Netherlands.

Purpose: Early detection of lung cancer is of importance since it can increase patients' chances of survival. To detect nodules accurately during screening, radiologists would commonly take the axial, coronal, and sagittal planes into account, rather than solely the axial plane in clinical evaluation. Inspired by clinical work, the paper aims to develop an accurate deep learning framework for nodule detection by a combination of multiple planes. Read More

Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv 2020 Oct 29;12261:802-812. Epub 2020 Sep 29.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.

Craniofacial syndromes often involve skeletal defects of the head. Studying the development of the (the part of the endoskeleton that protects the brain and other sense organs) is crucial to understanding genotype-phenotype relationships and early detection of skeletal malformation. Our goal is to segment craniofacial cartilages in 3D micro-CT images of embryonic mice stained with phosphotungstic acid. Read More

Proc Conf AAAI Artif Intell 2020 Feb 3;34(44):6925-6932. Epub 2020 Apr 3.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.

Image segmentation is critical to lots of medical applications. While deep learning (DL) methods continue to improve performance for many medical image segmentation tasks, data annotation is a big bottleneck to DL-based segmentation because (1) DL models tend to need a large amount of labeled data to train, and (2) it is highly time-consuming and label-intensive to voxel-wise label 3D medical images. Significantly reducing annotation effort while attaining good performance of DL segmentation models remains a major challenge. Read More

Biomed Eng Online 2020 Nov 30;19(1):90. Epub 2020 Nov 30.

School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, #2 SiPailou, Nanjing, China.

Background: Detecting coronary vulnerable plaques in vivo and assessing their vulnerability have been great challenges for clinicians and the research community. Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is commonly used in clinical practice for diagnosis and treatment decisions. However, due to IVUS limited resolution (about 150-200 µm), it is not sufficient to detect vulnerable plaques with a threshold cap thickness of 65 µm. Read More

Metabolism 2021 02 25;115:154440. Epub 2020 Nov 25.

University of Côte d'Azur, CNRS-UMR 7073 (LP2M), Department of Nephrology-Dialysis-Transplantation, Pasteur University Hospital, F-06002 CD1 Nice, France.

Background: Excess visceral fat (VF) or high body mass index (BMI) is risk factors for severe COVID-19. The receptor for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is expressed at higher levels in the VF than in the subcutaneous fat (SCF) of obese patients.

Aim: To show that visceral fat accumulation better predicts severity of COVID-19 outcome compared to either SCF amounts or BMI. Read More