多模态影像学检查在诊断早期强直性脊柱炎骶髂关节疾病中的效果

目的:探究在早期强直性脊柱炎骶髂关节疾病诊断中不同放射影像学检查方法的应用效果。方法:抽取2018年5月-2020年1月本院收治的早期强直性脊柱炎骶髂关节疾病患者65例作为研究对象,所有患者均开展X线、CT、MRI影像学检查,对比三种不同影像学检查方法的检出率、影像学特征。结果:X线、CT、MRI检出率分别为38.46%(25/65)、60.00%(39/65)、76.92%(50/65),检出率相比,MRI、CT明显高于X线,P<0.05;X线、CT、MRI影像学特征,发现关节间隙出现不同的异常,如关节面出现侵蚀、骨质囊变现象,关节面下骨质出现硬化与关节软骨出现肿胀,其中MRI、CT检查,阳性率高于X线,P<0.05。而对于软组织肿胀、骨髓水肿、滑膜炎症、关节滑膜增厚等现象,只能通过MRI检查才能诊断。结论:在早期强直性脊柱炎骶髂关节疾病诊断中,X线、CT、MRI影像学检查均具有一定的指导意义,而MRI不仅可以提高检出率,还能准确反映微小病灶及其软组织病变,对于早期发现骶髂关节炎值得推荐。     

Computer aided diagnosis of brain abnormalities using texture analysis of MRI images

The drive of this study is to develop a robust system. A method to classify brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) image into brain-related disease groups and tumor types has been proposed. The proposed method employed Gabor texture, statistical features, and support vector machine. Brain MRI images have been classified into normal, cerebrovascular, degenerative, inflammatory, and neoplastic. The proposed system has been trained on a complete dataset of Brain Atlas-Harvard Medical School. Further, to achieve robustness, a dataset developed locally has been used. Extraordinary results on different orientations, sequences of both of these datasets as per accuracy (up to 99.6%), sensitivity (up to 100%), specificity (up to 100%), precision (up to 100%), and AUC value (up to 1.0) have been achieved. The tumorous slices are further classified into primary or secondary tumor as well as their further types as glioma, sarcoma, meningioma, bronchogenic carcinoma, and adenocarcinoma, which could not be possible to determine without biopsy, otherwise.     

Tissue-Specific Ferritin- and GFP-Based Genetic Vectors Visualize Neurons by MRI in the Intact and Post-Ischemic Rat Brain

(1) Background: Neurogenesis is considered to be a potential brain repair mechanism and is enhanced in stroke. It is difficult to reconstruct the neurogenesis process only from the histological sections taken from different animals at different stages of brain damage and restoration. Study of neurogenesis would greatly benefit from development of tissue-specific visualization probes. (2) Purpose: The study aimed to explore if overexpression of ferritin, a nontoxic iron-binding protein, under a doublecortin promoter can be used for non-invasive visualization of neurogenesis using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). (3) Methods: Ferritin heavy chain (FerrH) was expressed in the adeno-associated viral backbone (AAV) under the doublecortin promoter (pDCX), specific for young neurons, in the viral construct AAV-pDCX-FerrH. Expression of the enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) was used as an expression control (AAV-pDCX-eGFP). The viral vectors or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) were injected intracerebrally into 18 adult male Sprague–Dawley rats. Three days before injection, rats underwent transient middle-cerebral-artery occlusion or sham operation. Animals were subjected to In vivo MRI study before surgery and on days 7, 14, 21, and 28 days after injection using a Bruker BioSpec 11.7 T scanner. Brain sections obtained on day 28 after injection were immunostained for ferritin, young (DCX) and mature (NeuN) neurons, and activated microglia/macrophages (CD68). Additionally, RT-PCR was performed to confirm ferritin expression. (4) Results: T2* images in post-ischemic brains of animals injected with AAV-pDCX-FerrH showed two distinct zones of MRI signal hypointensity in the ipsilesioned hemisphere starting from 14 days after viral injection—in the ischemic lesion and near the lateral ventricle and subventricular zone (SVZ). In sham-operated animals, only one zone of hypointensity near the lateral ventricle and SVZ was revealed. Immunochemistry showed that ferritin-expressing cells in ischemic lesions were macrophages (88.1%), while ferritin-expressing cells near the lateral ventricle in animals both after ischemia and sham operation were mostly mature (55.7% and 61.8%, respectively) and young (30.6% and 7.1%, respectively) neurons. RT-PCR confirmed upregulated expression of ferritin in the caudoputamen and corpus callosum. Surprisingly, in animals injected with AAV-pDCX-eGFP we similarly observed two zones of hypointensity on T2* images. Cellular studies also showed the presence of mature (81.5%) and young neurons (6.1%) near the lateral ventricle in both postischemic and sham-operated animals, while macrophages in ischemic lesions were ferritin-positive (98.2%). (5) Conclusion: Ferritin overexpression induced by injection of AAV-pDCX-FerrH was detected by MRI using T2*-weighted images, which was confirmed by immunochemistry showing ferritin in young and mature neurons. Expression of eGFP also caused a comparable reduced MR signal intensity in T2*-weighted images. Additional studies are needed to investigate the potential and tissue-specific features of the use of eGFP and ferritin expression in MRI studies.     

Characterisation of moisture migration of shiitake mushroom (Lentinula edodes) during storage and its relationship to quality deterioration

Water is a critical factor influencing the quality of mushrooms. This paper investigated the moisture migration of shiitake mushroom during storage using low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and its relationship to quality deterioration. Three water components assigned as water in different cell compartments of cell wall, cytoplasm and vacuole were observed in shiitake mushroom matrix. As the prolonging of storage time, the right shift of immobilised water and left shift of free water led to the merge of these two peaks at the end of storage. The increase in peak area of water in cytoplasm and decrease in the peak area of water in vacuole indicated evident moisture migration from vacuole to cytoplasm. MRI images showed heterogeneous water distribution in shiitake mushroom, and the water migrated from centre to surface, then evaporated to the environment. Besides, the moisture migration might be related to the weight loss and textural softening of shiitake mushroom.     

Dendrimer as nanocarrier for drug delivery

Dendrimers are novel three dimensional, hyperbranched globular nanopolymeric architectures. Attractive features like nanoscopic size, narrow polydispersity index, excellent control over molecular structure, availability of multiple functional groups at the periphery and cavities in the interior distinguish them amongst the available polymers. Applications of dendrimers in a large variety of fields have been explored. Drug delivery scientists are especially enthusiastic about possible utility of dendrimers as drug delivery tool. Terminal functionalities provide a platform for conjugation of the drug and targeting moieties. In addition, these peripheral functional groups can be employed to tailor-make the properties of dendrimers, enhancing their versatility. The present review highlights the contribution of dendrimers in the field of nanotechnology with intent to aid the researchers in exploring dendrimers in the field of drug delivery.     

冻融后花岗岩孔隙发育特征与单轴抗压强度的关联分析

为了研究冻融后岩石的孔隙特征与力学性质之间的关系,对冻融后的花岗岩进行了核磁共振测试和力学试验,分别分析了NMR孔隙度和谱面积与单轴抗压强度之间的关系,并将岩石核磁共振成像结果与力学破坏特性进行了关联分析。研究结果表明：孔隙的发育程度对岩石的力学损伤有重要的影响,岩石的NMR孔隙度和谱面积与单轴抗压强度之间的关系式均为指数分布,岩石内部的孔隙分布情况与其力学性质和宏观破坏特征之间存在一定的联系;采用分形理论对冻融后花岗岩的孔隙发育特征进行了描述,得出了冻融花岗岩孔隙发育的分形维数。分析表明,冻融作用下岩体内的裂隙产生及其演化具有自相似性,分形维数值越大,孔隙越发育,其单轴抗压强度就越小。     

新型SPECT/MRI双模态显像剂SPION-DMSA-RGD-~(99)Tc~m的合成与生物评价

为制备纳米材料SPION-DMSA-RGD及其标记物SPION-DMSA-RGD-99 Tcm,探讨该标记物作为SPECT/MRI双模态显像剂的可能性,在水溶性纳米颗粒SPION-DMSA上连接c(RGDfC),得到了SPION-DMSA-RGD,并进行了结构表征。用99 Tcm对SPION-DMSA-RGD进行标记,并对该标记物进行了正常鼠和荷U87MG人脑神经胶质瘤裸鼠的生物分布研究,及荷U87MG人脑神经胶质瘤裸鼠的MRI和SPECT显像研究。研究结果表明,SPION-DMSA-RGD具有超顺磁性,99 Tcm标记率约为98%。正常鼠和荷U87MG人脑神经胶质瘤裸鼠的生物分布结果表明,SPION-DMSA-RGD-99 Tcm在血液中清除较快,在肝脏中摄取较高,在肿瘤中有摄取。荷U87MG人脑神经胶质瘤裸鼠的MRI和SPECT显像结果表明,SPION-DMSA-RGD和SPION-DMSA-RGD-99 Tcm的肿瘤主动靶向作用明显。以上结果提示,对于荷U87MG人脑神经胶质瘤裸鼠,SPION-DMSA-RGD-99 Tc m是一种SPECT/MRI双模态显像剂。     

Magnetic resonance image denoising using nonlocal maximum likelihood paradigm in DCT‐framework

The data acquired by magnetic resonance (MR) imaging system are inherently degraded by noise that has its origin in the thermal Brownian motion of electrons. Denoising can enhance the quality (by improving the SNR) of the acquired MR image, which is important for both visual analysis and other post processing operations. Recent works on maximum likelihood (ML) based denoising shows that ML methods are very effective in denoising MR images and has an edge over the other state‐of‐the‐art methods for MRI denoising. Among the ML based approaches, the Nonlocal maximum likelihood (NLML) method is commonly used. In the conventional NLML method, the samples for the ML estimation of the unknown true pixel are chosen in a nonlocal fashion based on the intensity similarity of the pixel neighborhoods. Euclidean distance is generally used to measure this similarity. It has been recently shown that computing similarity measure is more robust in discrete cosine transform (DCT) subspace, compared with Euclidean image subspace. Motivated by this observation, we integrated DCT into NLML to produce an improved MRI filtration process. Other than improving the SNR, the time complexity of the conventional NLML can also be significantly reduced through the proposed approach. On synthetic MR brain image, an average improvement of 5% in PSNR and 86%reduction in execution time is achieved with a search window size of 91 × 91 after incorporating the improvements in the existing NLML method. On an experimental kiwi fruit image an improvement of 10% in PSNR is achieved. We did experiments on both simulated and real data sets to validate and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 25, 256–264, 2015     

Evaluation of a power injection system in the 7‐Tesla MRI environment

The injection of contrast media enables the visualization of various pathologies through X‐ray, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or other medical imaging modalities. Safety and functionality of power injector systems must be evaluated at high magnetic fields (7‐Tesla). The purpose of this study was to evaluate MRI issues for a power injection system (OptiStar Elite MR Contrast Delivery System, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, Hazelwood, MO) at 7‐Tesla including magnetic field interaction and 31 injector performance tests. Additionally, effects of operation of the power injection system on MR images were evaluated through observation of image artifacts and signal to noise analysis. The components of the power injection system (powerhead, syringes) exhibited no translational attraction when close to 7‐Tesla MR system. Translational attraction was detected for the power supply, power control, and cables, therefore there is a requirement to maintain these components fixed outside of the 0.1000 Tesla line. 7‐Tesla MR scanning did not impact power injection performance. The power injection system produced no discernible image artifacts or degradation when the power controls and powerhead were positioned in the worst‐case position. The power injection system tested for MRI issues passed evaluation for safety and operation at 7‐Tesla and is labeled MR Conditional for use at 7‐T. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 25, 50–55, 2015