Contrast Media & Molecular Imaging

With the improvement of the traditional Chinese medicine fumigation (TCMF), more and more people are studying lumbar intervertebral disc herniation (LIDH) by TCMF. In order to clarify the thermodynamic mechanism of TCMF to LIDH and provide a model reference for individualized diagnosis, the lower control system is compiled by the microprocessor, and the upper control system is compiled by computer technology of VB. In this new system, the medical information of patients is recorded in the databases by the upper control system, and clinical diagnosis and treatment experience are packaged in the lower control system. The simulation results and clinical examples show that the new control system of TCMF has better clinical efficacy for LIDH patients, which not only effectively improves the pain symptoms of LIDH patients but is also economical and safe.

Objective. To investigate the efficacy of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in quantitatively evaluating angiogenesis during patellar tendon healing in rats. Methods. A total of 40 Sprague–Dawley rats were used in this study. The patellar tendons of 30 rats (60 limbs) that underwent incision and suture were treated as the operation group and monitored after 7, 14, and 28 days. The normal patellar tendons of 10 rats (20 limbs) were treated as the control group and monitored on day 0. The ultrasound examination was used to evaluate the structure and blood perfusion of the patellar tendon. Immunohistochemistry was used to assess angiogenesis, and the biomechanical test was used to verify functional recovery of the patellar tendon. Results. The tendons in the operation group were significantly thickened compared with those in the control group ( < 0.01). The peak intensity (PI) in CEUS of the tendons showed a clear difference at each time point after the surgery ( < 0.01). PI increased in the operation group with a maximum on day 7, and then gradually decreased until day 28 when PI was close to the basic intensity (BI) in the control group ( > 0.05). It was consistent with the change of the CD31-positive staining areas representing angiogenesis of the injured patellar tendons. The PI was positively correlated with the CD31-positive staining area fraction (R = 0.849,  < 0.001). The failure load and tensile strength of the repaired patellar tendons in the operation group increased over time. The PI showed negative correlations with the failure load (R = −0.787,  < 0.001) and tensile strength (R = −0.714,  < 0.001). Conclusion. The PI in CEUS could quantitatively reflect the time-dependent change in the blood supply of the healing site, and the PI correlated with histologic and biomechanical properties of the healing tendon. Quantitative analysis of contrast-enhanced ultrasound could be a useful method to evaluate angiogenesis in healing tendons.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been applied successfully in many real-life domains for solving complex problems. With the invention of Machine Learning (ML) paradigms, it becomes convenient for researchers to predict the outcome based on past data. Nowadays, ML is acting as the biggest weapon against the COVID-19 pandemic by detecting symptomatic cases at an early stage and warning people about its futuristic effects. It is observed that COVID-19 has blown out globally so much in a short period because of the shortage of testing facilities and delays in test reports. To address this challenge, AI can be effectively applied to produce fast as well as cost-effective solutions. Plenty of researchers come up with AI-based solutions for preliminary diagnosis using chest CT Images, respiratory sound analysis, voice analysis of symptomatic persons with asymptomatic ones, and so forth. Some AI-based applications claim good accuracy in predicting the chances of being COVID-19-positive. Within a short period, plenty of research work is published regarding the identification of COVID-19. This paper has carefully examined and presented a comprehensive survey of more than 110 papers that came from various reputed sources, that is, Springer, IEEE, Elsevier, MDPI, arXiv, and medRxiv. Most of the papers selected for this survey presented candid work to detect and classify COVID-19, using deep-learning-based models from chest X-Rays and CT scan images. We hope that this survey covers most of the work and provides insights to the research community in proposing efficient as well as accurate solutions for fighting the pandemic.

Axillary lymph node detection is crucial to staging and prognosis of the lymph node metastatic spread in breast cancer. Currently, lymphoscintigraphy and blue dye, as the conventional methods to localize sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs), are invasive and can only be performed during surgery. This study has had a novel hybrid gadolinium oxide nanoparticle coating with Cyclodextrin-based polyester as a high-relaxivity T₁ magnetic resonance molecular imaging (MRMI) contrast agent (CA). Twelve female BALB/c mice were randomly divided into three groups of four mice; each group was injected with 4T₁ cells to obtain metastasis lymph nodes and diagnosed by using the 3D T₁W (VIBE) MRI (Siemens 3T, Prisma). The synthesized Gd₂O₃@PCD nanoparticles with a suitable particle size range of 20–40 nm have had much higher longitudinal relaxivity (r₁) for Gd₂O₃@PCD and Gd-DOTA (Dotarem) with the values of 3.98 mM⁻¹·s⁻¹ ± 0.003 and 2.71 mM⁻¹·s⁻¹ ± 0.005, respectively. Identical MR images in coronal views were subsequently obtained to create time-intensity curves of the right axillary lymph nodes and to measure the contrast ratio (CR). The peak CR and qualitative assessment of axillary lymph nodes at five-time points were evaluated. After subcutaneous injection, the contrast ratio of axillary lymph node and tumor in mice exhibited CR peak of Gd₂O₃@PCD and Dotarem with the values of 2.21 ± 0.06 and 0.40 ± 0.004 for lymph node and 2.54 ± 0.04 and 1.21 ± 0.007 for the tumor, respectively. Furthermore, the lumbar-aortic lymph node is weakly visible in the original coronal image. In conclusion, the use of Gd₂O₃@PCD nanoparticles as novel MRMI CAs enables high resolution for the detection of lymph node metastasis in mice with the potential capability for breast cancer diagnostic imaging.

Objective. To investigate the effect of applying remimazolam combined with esketamine for anesthesia in painless gastroenteroscopy on patients’ circulatory and respiratory function. Method. In this study, 106 patients who had undergone painless gastroenteroscopy in Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) Hospital between July 2021 and January 2022 were selected as study subjects, which were grouped according to the anesthetic drugs used in the surgery and divided into control group (n = 53 cases) and observation group (n = 53 cases), while those who were anesthetized with propofol + sufentanil during the operation were the control group and those who were anesthetized with remimazolam + esketamine were the observation group. To compare the induction time of anesthesia, patient awakening and recovery time of orientation, circulatory and respiratory function, intraoperative adverse effects, and postoperative complications in the two study groups. Results. There was no statistical difference in induction of anesthesia, patient awakening, and recovery time of orientation between the two groups () and no statistical difference in postoperative complications (). The observation group had a better occurrence of local pain at the injection site, circulatory and respiratory function of patients after anesthesia, and intraoperative adverse reactions than the control group (). Conclusion. Remimazolam combined with esketamine anesthesia has the same advantages of rapid awakening compared with propofol anesthesia. Moreover, it has fewer side effects on patients’ circulatory and respiratory functions with fewer adverse effects, as a suitable anesthetic method for painless gastroenteroscopy.

Objective. To investigate the need for and prognostic impact of gefitinib on the treatment of patients with early-stage epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutated non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods. Clinical data of patients with stage IB-IIA non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer admitted to our thoracic surgery department from January 2020 to January 2022 were collected, and a total of 94 cases were included, divided into 44 cases in the control group (EGFR mutation-negative) and 50 cases in the experimental group (EGFR mutation-positive (including those on medication (19 cases) and those not on medication (31 cases)) according to the outcome of EGFR mutation. To evaluate the necessity and prognostic effect of gefitinib in the treatment of NSCLC patients with early EGFR mutations. Results. The lung cancer recurrence rate in the experimental group (66.00%) was higher than that in the control group (40.91%), and the difference was statistically significant ( = 5.937, ); in the subgroup analysis of the experimental group samples, the pharmacological intervention of gefitinib had a significant effect on lung cancer recurrence ( = 7.797, ), and the proportion of lung cancer recurrence in patients not taking the drug (80.65%) was significantly higher than in the drug-taking group (42.11%); the median survival time was 53.6 months using EGFR mutation type as the study factor, with a statistically significant difference in change in 5-year survival rate for EGFR mutation type ( = 6.095, ) and the lowest 5-year survival rate for subjects with EGFR mutation type Exon 20 T790M. Conclusion. Patients with early gene drive positive lung adenocarcinoma are significantly more likely to recur and metastasise and have shorter survival times in the absence of pharmacological intervention.