Non-EPI versus Multishot EPI DWI in Cholesteatoma Detection: Correlation with Operative Findings

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:Although multishot EPI (readout-segmented EPI) has been touted as a robust DWI sequence for cholesteatoma evaluation, its efficacy in disease detection compared with a non-EPI (eg, HASTE) technique is unknown. This study sought to compare the accuracy of readout-segmented EPI with that of HASTE DWI in cholesteatoma detection.MATERIALS AND METHODS:A retrospective review was completed of consecutive patients who underwent MR imaging for the evaluation of suspected primary or recurrent/residual cholesteatomas. Included patients had MR imaging examinations that included both HASTE and readout-segmented EPI sequences and confirmed cholesteatomas on a subsequent operation. Two neuroradiologist reviewers assessed all images, with discrepancies resolved by consensus. The ratio of signal intensity between the cerebellum and any observed lesion was noted.RESULTS:Of 23 included patients, 12 (52.2%) were women (average age, 47.8 [SD, 25.2] years). All patients had surgically confirmed cholesteatomas: Six (26.1%) were primary and 17 (73.9%) were recidivistic. HASTE images correctly identified cholesteatomas in 100.0% of patients. On readout-segmented EPI sequences, 16 (69.6%) were positive, 5 (21.7%) were equivocal, and 2 (8.7%) were falsely negative. Excellent interobserver agreement was noted between reviews on both HASTE (κ = 1.0) and readout-segmented EPI (κ = 0.9) sequences. The average signal intensity ratio was significantly higher on HASTE than in readout-segmented EPI, facilitating enhanced detection (mean difference 0.5; 95% CI, 0.3–0.8; P = .003).CONCLUSIONS:HASTE outperforms readout-segmented EPI in the detection of primary cholesteatoma and disease recidivism.

Middle ear cholesteatomas are ectopic, keratinizing squamous epithelium, which may be acquired or, much less commonly, congenital.^1,2 Although not considered a true neoplasm, cholesteatomas are locally destructive and have a high propensity for recurrence following surgical removal. As they gradually expand, cholesteatomas erode the osseous structures within and adjacent to the middle ear cavity, including the ossicles, labyrinth, fallopian canal, and middle fossa bone plate.³ Current mainstay therapy includes microsurgical extirpation, with the chief goal of complete disease removal and prevention of intratemporal and intracranial complications.⁴ The most common microsurgical approach for cholesteatoma is an canal wall up tympanomastoidectomy, in which the posterior bony ear canal is left intact and the tympanic membrane is reconstructed. Depending on the extent of disease at surgery, a planned second-look procedure may be performed approximately 1 year after the initial operation to evaluate residual disease and potentially reconstruct the ossicular chain when indicated. Nevertheless, residual and/or recurrent (ie, recidivism) disease occurs in up to 30% of cases. Imaging is crucial in cholesteatoma management; it aids in the initial diagnosis and may obviate the need for second-look surgery.^5,6During the past decade, DWI has emerged as a powerful diagnostic tool for detection of both primary and residual or recurrent cholesteatomas.^7-9 Cholesteatomas demonstrate marked hyperintensity on DWI , likely related to either T2 shinethrough or intralesional restricted diffusion related to keratin debris.¹⁰ Across the years, there have been many iterations of DWI optimization for cholesteatoma identification. The EPI trajectory used by conventional DWI makes such sequences prone to substantial susceptibility artifacts, and single-shot EPI sequences were found to be poor at identifying lesions of <4–5 mm.^11-13 Consequently, non-EPI DWI techniques began to be favored; such algorithms minimize susceptibility artifacts and geometric distortion related to the skull base and are able to detect lesions as small as 2 mm.^14,15 BLADE (Siemens) and other such PROPELLER sequences are subtypes of non-EPI techniques that minimize susceptibility artifacts and geometric distortions by sampling k-space in a rotating fashion.^16,17More recently, HASTE DWI (Siemens) has emerged as a particularly effective sequence, which is relatively insensitive to motion and has been shown in prior studies to detect cholesteatomas with promising accuracy.^18,19 Although traditional EPI techniques have been largely abandoned in the setting of cholesteatoma detection, readout-segmented EPI (RESOLVE; Siemens) DWI is a relatively new technique that has been promoted as a possible alternative diffusion sequence. RESOLVE is a multishot (MS) EPI sequence that is able to reduce geometric distortions at the expense of longer imaging time. Recent reports have indicated that RESOLVE may be a useful sequence in cases of suspected cholesteatoma.^7,20Despite its proposed efficacy in cholesteatoma imaging, the diagnostic utility of RESOLVE sequences has yet to be robustly evaluated against non-EPI DWI, the current criterion standard. Thus, this study was conceived with the chief goal of assessing the accuracy of RESOLVE in the detection of cholesteatomas and comparing the ability of RESOLVE with that of HASTE sequences in this context.     

La pandemia COVID-19 y su repercusión en la unidad de radiología intervencionista: nuestra experiencia

This paper aims to describe our experience in an interventional radiology unit in a hospital in Spain that was severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, we did a prospective observational study of 20 consecutive patients with COVID-19 who underwent 21 interventional radiology procedures between March 13, 2020 and May 11, 2020. We describe the measures taken to reorganize the work and protective measures, as well as the repercussions of the situation on our unit's overall activity and activity in different phases. The COVID-19 pandemic has represented a challenge in our daily work, but learning from our own experience and the recommendations of the Spanish radiological societies (SERVEI and SERAM) has enabled us to adapt successfully. Our activity dropped only 22% compared to the same period in 2019.     

Manejo de la enfermedad de Parkinson y otros trastornos del movimiento en mujeres en edad fértil: Parte 1

IntroductionThe main challenge of Parkinson's disease in women of childbearing age is managing symptoms and drugs during pregnancy and breastfeeding. The increase in the age at which women are having children makes it likely that these pregnancies will become more common in future.ObjectivesThis study aims to define the clinical characteristics of women of childbearing age with Parkinson's disease and the factors affecting their lives, and to establish a series of guidelines for managing pregnancy in these patients.ResultsThis consensus document was developed through an exhaustive literature search and a discussion of the available evidence by a group of movement disorder experts from the Spanish Society of Neurology.ConclusionsParkinson's disease affects all aspects of sexual and reproductive health in women of childbearing age. Pregnancy should be well planned to minimise teratogenic risk. A multidisciplinary approach should be adopted in the management of these patients in order to take all relevant considerations into account.     

Interoception Primes Emotional Processing: Multimodal Evidence from Neurodegeneration

Recent frameworks in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurology underscore interoceptive priors as core modulators of negative emotions. However, the field lacks experimental designs manipulating the priming of emotions via interoception and exploring their multimodal signatures in neurodegenerative models. Here, we designed a novel task that involves interoceptive and control-exteroceptive priming conditions followed by post-interoception and post-exteroception facial emotion recognition (FER). We recruited 114 participants, including healthy controls (HCs) as well as patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), Parkinson''s disease (PD), and Alzheimer''s disease (AD). We measured online EEG modulations of the heart-evoked potential (HEP), and associations with both brain structural and resting-state functional connectivity patterns. Behaviorally, post-interoception negative FER was enhanced in HCs but selectively disrupted in bvFTD and PD, with AD presenting generalized disruptions across emotion types. Only bvFTD presented impaired interoceptive accuracy. Increased HEP modulations during post-interoception negative FER was observed in HCs and AD, but not in bvFTD or PD patients. Across all groups, post-interoception negative FER correlated with the volume of the insula and the ACC. Also, negative FER was associated with functional connectivity along the (a) salience network in the post-interoception condition, and along the (b) executive network in the post-exteroception condition. These patterns were selectively disrupted in bvFTD (a) and PD (b), respectively. Our approach underscores the multidimensional impact of interoception on emotion, while revealing a specific pathophysiological marker of bvFTD. These findings inform a promising theoretical and clinical agenda in the fields of nteroception, emotion, allostasis, and neurodegeneration.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We examined whether and how emotions are primed by interoceptive states combining multimodal measures in healthy controls and neurodegenerative models. In controls, negative emotion recognition and ongoing HEP modulations were increased after interoception. These patterns were selectively disrupted in patients with atrophy across key interoceptive-emotional regions (e.g., the insula and the cingulate in frontotemporal dementia, frontostriatal networks in Parkinson''s disease), whereas persons with Alzheimer''s disease presented generalized emotional processing abnormalities with preserved interoceptive mechanisms. The integration of both domains was associated with the volume and connectivity (salience network) of canonical interoceptive-emotional hubs, critically involving the insula and the anterior cingulate. Our study reveals multimodal markers of interoceptive-emotional priming, laying the groundwork for new agendas in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurology.     

Conventional Ultrafiltration During Elective Cardiac Surgery and Postoperative Acute Kidney Injury

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Clot Burden Score and Collateral Status and Their Impact on Functional Outcome in Acute Ischemic Stroke

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:Collateral status and thrombus length have been independently associated with functional outcome in patients with acute ischemic stroke. It has been suggested that thrombus length would influence functional outcome via interaction with the collateral circulation. We investigated the individual and combined effects of thrombus length assessed by the clot burden score and collateral status assessed by a FLAIR vascular hyperintensity–ASPECTS rating system on functional outcome (mRS).MATERIALS AND METHODS:Patients with anterior circulation acute ischemic stroke due to large-vessel occlusion from the ASTER and THRACE trials treated with endovascular thrombectomy were pooled. The clot burden score and FLAIR vascular hyperintensity score were determined on MR imaging obtained before endovascular thrombectomy. Favorable outcome was defined as an mRS score of 0–2 at 90 days. Association of the clot burden score and the FLAIR vascular hyperintensity score with favorable outcome (individual effect and interaction) was examined using logistic regression models.RESULTS:Of the 326 patients treated by endovascular thrombectomy with both the clot burden score and FLAIR vascular hyperintensity assessment, favorable outcome was observed in 165 (51%). The rate of favorable outcome increased with clot burden score (smaller clots) and FLAIR vascular hyperintensity (better collaterals) values. The association between clot burden score and functional outcome was significantly modified by the FLAIR vascular hyperintensity score, and this association was stronger in patients with good collaterals, with an adjusted OR = 6.15 (95% CI, 1.03–36.81).CONCLUSIONS:The association between the clot burden score and functional outcome varied for different collateral scores. The FLAIR vascular hyperintensity score might be a valuable prognostic factor, especially when contrast-based vascular imaging is not available.

Therapeutic reperfusion with endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) is consistently associated with a better long-term functional outcome in anterior circulation acute ischemic stroke (AIS).¹ Early reperfusion is the mainstay of therapy because it strongly predicts functional outcome.² Many factors impact clinical outcomes, including the extent of clot and collateral supply.^3–7The clot burden score (CBS) assessed by the T2* MR imaging sequence (T2*-CBS), which was adapted from the CTA-CBS,⁸ has been used to assess the extent of the clot⁹ and has been independently associated with functional outcome in patients undergoing EVT.¹⁰Good collaterals have been related to better clinical outcome through 2 distinct mechanisms. First, collaterals are thought to contribute to prolonged penumbra sustenance.^11,12 Second, good retrograde collateral filling beyond the occlusion could promote successful reperfusion by providing more access to thrombolytics at the distal end of the clot and robust collaterals dissolving clot fragments in the distal vasculature.^13,14 The Highly Effective Reperfusion evaluated in Multiple Endovascular Stroke Trials (HERMES) collaboration analysis suggested a benefit with EVT across all strata of collateral circulation status;¹⁵ however, patients with poor collaterals are less likely to benefit from EVT than those with better collaterals.Most interesting, FLAIR vascular hyperintensity (FVH) on baseline MR imaging could indicate the formation of a leptomeningeal collateral circulation and serve as a prognostic marker for patients with AIS.^16-18 Both collaterals and the CBS were separately associated with functional outcome in patients undergoing EVT,^10,16 but their combined effect regarding clinical outcome is still poorly understood and has been assessed and quantified only with CTA or contrast-enhanced MRA in patients with AIS.^14,15 Furthermore, the lack of adjustment for possible confounders because of the small number of patients with very low collateral scores might also have influenced results in these studies.The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is an association between the CBS and FVH score and whether the association between the CBS and functional outcome is modified by the FVH score for patients who were treated by EVT for large-vessel occlusion within the framework of the Contact Aspiration versus Stent Retriever for Successful Revascularization (ASTER) and the THRombectomie des Artères CErebrales (THRACE) randomized trials.^19,20