A Case of Liver Cirrhosis with a Hyperplastic Nodular Lesion

A hyperplastic nodular lesion resembling focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) was found in the cirrhotic liver of a 50-year-old male patient. A nodule was detected by ultrasonography and hepatic angiography conducted as part of a routine follow-up study for chronic liver disease, and was excised under a diagnosis of suspected hepatocellular carcinoma. Grossly, central stellate scar-like septa subdividing the nodule ware noted. These fibrous septa contained many small arteries and veins, as well as bile ducts. The parenchyma of the nodule also contained many small arteries. Although these findings were similar to those seen in typical FNH, the present lesion was different in that it was encapsulated, occurred against a background of liver cirrhosis, lacked hepatocyte hyperplasia and showed hemosiderin deposition.     

Hyperplastic and Tumorous Lesions of the Adrenals in an Unselected Autopsy Series

In an unselected consecutive postmortem series, 53.2% of the adrenals showed cortical nodules with diameters up to 1 mm in 13%, between 1 and 2 mm in 28% and >2 mm in 12%. In 22% of cases only one nodule was present; whereas in 15% two nodules and in 17% more than three nodules were found. A cortical adenoma was detected in 5% of cases. Adenomas were smaller than 6 mm in 1% and >15 mm also in 1% of the entire collection. For differentiation of nodules criteria listed in Table 4 were used. Correlation with clinical data revealed a significantly higher number of nodules and an adenoma more frequently in hypertensive patients. Metastases were found in 19% of all cases with malignant tumors. Twenty-three percent of the metastases were smaller than 1 mm and 20% were >10 mm in diameter. Adrenal metastases usually indicated generalized dissemination of the tumor.     

磁共振肝脏快速容积成像技术及增强CT对肝脏结节性病变的应用价值

目的 探究对比MRI-LAVA序列与增强CT诊断对肝脏结节性病变的应用价值.方法 选取78例肝脏结节性病变患者均接受MRI-LAVA序列诊断以及增强CT诊断,比较诊断的准确率、灵敏度、特异度以及准确度.结果 在病理学诊断结果中,共诊断出91处病灶,其中直径不低于3 cm的病灶共有24处,直径低于3 cm的病灶共有67处...     

3H—TdR法分析小鼠增殖肝提取物活性

苯巴比妥钠诱导增殖的小鼠肝脏加热提取物５－２００ｍｇ／Ｌ，明显刺激人Ｌ０２肝细胞系＾３Ｈ－ＴｄＲ掺入，抑制５－Ｆｕ对人Ｌ０２肝细胞的杀伤作用；相同剂量的非加热提取物抑制人Ｌ０２肝细胞生长，苯巴比胺钠５－２０ｍｇ／Ｌ对人Ｌ０２细胞＾３Ｈ－ＴｄＲ掺入及５－Ｆｕ杀伤作用无影响，经胰蛋白酶预处理后，小鼠增殖肝加热提取物活性消失。这说明苯巴比妥钠本身对人Ｌ０２肝细胞不是一种丝裂原性药物，其诱导小鼠肝脏增殖作     

Ultrastructural Cytochemistry of Eosinophilic Inclusions in the Cells of Hyperplastic Nodules and Hepatomas in Mouse Liver

Intracisternal inclusions in the cells of 48 hyperplastic nodules and hepatomas in mouse liver were examined by electron microscopy to determine the precise compositions of the inclusions in relation to their ultrastructure, and some preliminary attempts at isolation and chemical analysis of the inclusions were performed. We classified the inclusions into two types. One was mainly of larger size, consisting of a single electron-lucent core and a granular cortical zone of high electron density. The other type was smaller, with a number of tiny, electron-lucent areas crowded into the central area instead of a single core. The cortical material of the inclusions was digested by pepsin treatment of thin sections, whereas the core and the electron lucent areas within the cortical zone were not extracted. On the other hand, in materials treated with ethanol before post osmication, only the core and electron-lucent areas within the cortical zone were partially extracted. The ultrastructure of the isolated inclusions was very similar to that of inclusions in situ . The chemical composition of the isolated fractions was estimated to be 60% protein and 35% lipid. Electrophoretically, the protein of this fraction showed a single band. We conclude that the cortical substance is proteinaceous in nature, probably consisting of a single protein or a group of proteins with identical electrophoretic mobility, whereas the core is composed of lipid. The possibility that the inclusions are due to an impairment in the mechanism of intracellular lipoprotein transport is discussed.     

关于患者喉部增生肉芽组织摘除术的空气动力学分析

基于计算流体动力学(computational fluid dynamics,CFD)方法分析咽喉部阻塞患者手术摘除增生肉芽组织前后咽、喉及气道内相关空气动力学指标的变化及其对流场特征的影响,以期为术后临床效果的评估提供理论依据。首先通过患者手术前后的CT影像学数据,建立咽部、喉部及气道的三维有限元数值模型;然后采用计算流体动力学的方法,数值模拟并分析喉部肉芽组织摘除术前后咽、喉及气道内空气动力学特征的变化。结果显示:术后喉部异常结构形态改善显著,气道阻力下降明显,患者呼吸困难的症状在很大程度上得到了缓解。但由于术后患者喉部解剖结构的变化,使得患者吸气时出现气流扰动及局部负压的情况。这些结果表明通过对咽、喉及气道内空气动力学的分析研究,有助于找出造成空气动力学异常的关键解剖结构,咽喉及气道内流场的CFD数值模拟分析可以有效地评估喉部增生肉芽组织摘除术的临床效果。为开展个性化咽喉部阻塞治疗术提供更多的理论依据。     

Emergence of a high-level cefotaxime-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae strain in New Zealand

An increase in the number of cefotaxime-resistant pneumococci referred for surveillance to a central laboratory in New Zealand occurred in 1997-1998. The MIC of cefotaxime for 113 of 216 cefotaxime-resistant isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae referred was > or = 4 mg/L. Most of the 113 isolates exhibited the same antibiotic resistance pattern and belonged to serotype 19F. To investigate the genetic relatedness of the isolates, 48 serotype 19F pneumococci with varying susceptibility to cefotaxime were further typed by macro-restriction analysis by use of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. These results suggested that a multiresistant 19F strain of S. pneumoniae with high-level cefotaxime resistance had emerged from a pre-existing serotype 19F strain.     

Computerized Prediction of Radiological Observations Based on Quantitative Feature Analysis: Initial Experience in Liver Lesions

We propose a computerized framework that, given a region of interest (ROI) circumscribing a lesion, not only predicts radiological observations related to the lesion characteristics with 83.2% average prediction accuracy but also derives explicit association between low-level imaging features and high-level semantic terms by exploiting their statistical correlation. Such direct association between semantic concepts and low-level imaging features can be leveraged to build a powerful annotation system for radiological images that not only allows the computer to infer the semantics from diverse medical images and run automatic reasoning for making diagnostic decision but also provides “human-interpretable explanation” of the system output to facilitate better end user understanding of computer-based diagnostic decisions. The core component of our framework is a radiological observation detection algorithm that maximizes the low-level imaging feature relevancy for each high-level semantic term. On a liver lesion CT dataset, we have implemented our framework by incorporating a large set of state-of-the-art low-level imaging features. Additionally, we included a novel feature that quantifies lesion(s) present within the liver that have a similar appearance as the primary lesion identified by the radiologist. Our framework achieved a high prediction accuracy (83.2%), and the derived association between semantic concepts and imaging features closely correlates with human expectation. The framework has been only tested on liver lesion CT images, but it is capable of being applied to other imaging domains.     

Correlation Between Histomorphometric and Micro-computed Tomography Analysis of Periapical Lesions in Mice Model

Periapical lesions are processes mediated from bacterial invasion on the pulp tissue, which results in inflammatory process and bone resorption. Animal models have been used for the study of cell interactions and inflammatory responses involved in periapical lesion. The use of different methods for morphometric evaluation of this lesion has been reported. However, due to the limitation of 2D methods, computerized microtomography (µCT) has been indicated. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between the histomorphometric measures of periapical lesions and the µCT analysis obtained in an animal experimental model. Briefly, the periapical lesions were induced by pulp exposal and after the experimental periods (7, 21 and 42 days) the mice were euthanized. The mandibles were evaluated under the µCT scanning and then were subjected to the routine histologic procedures, stained with hematoxilin and eosin. The periapical lesions were measured by the specific softwares of each technique. A weak correlation among the histomorphometric measurement and the 2D µCT analysis (r^2?=?.204) and between the histomorphometric measurement and the 3D µCT analysis (r^2?=?.237) was observed. A strong correlation between the 2D and 3D µCT analysis (r^2?=?.867) was observed. Thereby, it can be concluded that the µCT is a method that allows a precise volumetric scanning and represents an important tool for morphometric evaluation.     

Modeling Perceptual Similarity Measures in CT Images of Focal Liver Lesions

Motivation: A gold standard for perceptual similarity in medical images is vital to content-based image retrieval, but inter-reader variability complicates development. Our objective was to develop a statistical model that predicts the number of readers (N) necessary to achieve acceptable levels of variability. Materials and Methods: We collected 3 radiologists’ ratings of the perceptual similarity of 171 pairs of CT images of focal liver lesions rated on a 9-point scale. We modeled the readers’ scores as bimodal distributions in additive Gaussian noise and estimated the distribution parameters from the scores using an expectation maximization algorithm. We (a) sampled 171 similarity scores to simulate a ground truth and (b) simulated readers by adding noise, with standard deviation between 0 and 5 for each reader. We computed the mean values of 2–50 readers’ scores and calculated the agreement (AGT) between these means and the simulated ground truth, and the inter-reader agreement (IRA), using Cohen’s Kappa metric. Results: IRA for the empirical data ranged from =0.41 to 0.66. For between 1.5 and 2.5, IRA between three simulated readers was comparable to agreement in the empirical data. For these values , AGT ranged from =0.81 to 0.91. As expected, AGT increased with N, ranging from =0.83 to 0.92 for N = 2 to 50, respectively, with =2. Conclusion: Our simulations demonstrated that for moderate to good IRA, excellent AGT could nonetheless be obtained. This model may be used to predict the required N to accurately evaluate similarity in arbitrary size datasets.     

A Rapid Reliable Silver Technic for the Demonstration of Reticulin Fibers in Liver Biopsies

Abstract

The details of a method for staining reticulin which is both rapid and reproducible is presented. Much of the basic chemistry and theory of silver staining is examined, with several new concepts being presented. Among the most important is a silver complex which can be prepared in large volumes, stored for long periods, is very stable and gives consistent reproducible staining results. Also presented are new ideas on the use of oxidizers, sensitizers, reducers and the role of gold chloride as a toning reagent.     

A Sequential Ultrastructural and Histoautoradiographic Study of Early Neoplastic Lesions in Ethylnitrosouyea-induced Rat Glioma

A sequential study of the early stage of development of ethylnitrosourea (ENU) induced glioma in the rat was performed by electron microscopy and [³H]thymidine histoautoradiography. Hyperplasia, the earliest neoplastic change that was detectable morphologically, consisted of a few or several immature oligodendroglia like cells which were connected with one another or with preexisting neural tissue by junctional apparatus, and showed no reactive changes in the astrocytes or microglia. The labelling index of hyperplastic cells was 2.6%. Foci of early neoplastic proliferation (ENP) showed mild destructive changes in the neighboring neural tissue, and their major constituent cells had characteristics of immature oligodendroglias. The labelling index of cells showing ENP was 3.3%. The intercellular spaces exhibited slight enlargement with accumulation of extracellular matrix and a decrease in the number of junctional apparatus on the neoplastic cells. Microtumors showed apparent destruction of the preexisting neural tissue to form a tumor mass with an increase in the extracellular matrix. Constituent cells of the microtumors were similar to those of the ENP, although reactive astrocytes and microglias occurred more frequently. The labelling index was 9.6% in the central area of microtumors and 5.3% in the peripheral area. These findings suggest that in the initial or very early stages of glial cell neoplastic proliferation, it is necessary for the neoplastic cells to maintain contact with the neurons for metabolic purposes, and that after losing contact, these cells can proliferate autonomously with the accumulation of extracellular matrix.     

Rapid Emergence of emm84 among Invasive Streptococcus pyogenes Infections in Finland

From 2005 to 2007, in Finland, the incidence of invasive Streptococcus pyogenes disease increased sharply, partly due to the uncommon emm84 gene becoming more prevalent from 2006 onwards. The overall case fatality rate of infections caused by strains carrying emm84 was not significantly different than that of infections caused by other types (7% versus 10%, respectively; P = 0.50).     

Phylogenetic Analysis of the Flavivirus-associated Encephalitis Syndromes, Development and Application of a New Molecular Marker for the Rapid Characterization of Flaviviruses

Flaviviruses are arthropod transmitted viruses belonging tothe family Flaviviridae, and the genus Flavivirus includesmore than 70 species of single stranded viruses bearing re sponsibility of considerable morbidity and mortality of thisviral infection. So…