Ipi, Medicom and Dicom: Relations and possible future

In October 1993, DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) Version 3.0 was approved by the ACR-NEMA committee as an ACR-NEMA standard for medical image interchange. At about the same time, IPI (Image Processing and Interchange) was approved as an ISO standard for general imaging. Within the European Committee for Standardisation, CEN, work on a European standard for medical image interchange, MEDICOM, has been going on for the last few years. It has been decided within the CEN Technical Committee for Medical Informatics (CEN/TC 251) that such a European standard should be based on IPI. In December 1993 it was also agreed that CEN would use DICOM 3.0 as a starting point in this work. Joint meetings between CEN/TC 251 Working Group 4 (Medical Imaging and Multimedia) and ACR-NEMA have been held held during 1994 and continue in 1995. This paper points to some of the reasons, both technical and economical, why IPI is suitable for medical imaging. It also shows how DICOM and IPI are complementary and that they could be used together to cover the requirements of future applications in medical imaging.     

New Drug Targets in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease where the synovial tissue is characterized by heavy infiltration of leukocytes. Chemokines and chemokine receptors play an important role in cell migration and positioning of leukocytes within the inflamed rheumatoid synovium. There is now much focus on the specific contribution and role of each chemokine and chemokine receptor in the chronic inflammatory process in the synovial tissue. Recent evidence indicates that interference with the chemokines released from the inflamed synovial cells or the chemokine receptors expressed on the cells infiltrating the synovial tissue may lead to discovery of new therapeutics for this disease.     

Lack of association between <Emphasis Type="Italic">PKLR</Emphasis> rs3020781 and <Emphasis Type="Italic">NOS1AP</Emphasis> rs7538490 and type 2 diabetes,overweight, obesity and related metabolic phenotypes in a Danish large-scale study: case-control studies and analyses of quantitative traits

Background  

Several studies in multiple ethnicities have reported linkage to type 2 diabetes on chromosome 1q21-25. Both PKLR encoding the liver pyruvate kinase and NOS1AP encoding the nitric oxide synthase 1 (neuronal) adaptor protein (CAPON) are positioned within this chromosomal region and are thus positional candidates for the observed linkage peak. The C-allele of PKLR rs3020781 and the T-allele of NOS1AP rs7538490 are reported to strongly associate with type 2 diabetes in various European-descent populations comprising a total of 2,198 individuals with a combined odds ratio (OR) of 1.33 [1.16–1.54] and 1.53 [1.28–1.81], respectively. Our aim was to validate these findings by investigating the impact of the two variants on type 2 diabetes and related quantitative metabolic phenotypes in a large study sample of Danes. Further, we intended to expand the analyses by examining the effect of the variants in relation to overweight and obesity.     

Parecoxib is neuroprotective in spontaneously hypertensive rats after transient middle cerebral artery occlusion: a divided treatment response?

Background  

Anti-inflammatory treatment affects ischemic damage and neurogenesis in rodent models of cerebral ischemia. We investigated the potential benefit of COX-2 inhibition with parecoxib in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) subjected to transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAo).     

Striatal dopamine D2 binding is related to frontal BOLD response during updating of long-term memory representations

Multi-modal brain imaging was used to examine the relation between individual differences in resting-state striatal dopamine D2 binding and the magnitude of prefrontal BOLD activation during updating of long-term memory (LTM) representations. Increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex was observed when LTM updating was required, and there was a positive correlation between striatal D2 activity and the magnitude of left prefrontal activity during updating. These findings support predictions from neurocomputational models of a relation of dopaminergic neurotransmission to transient cognitive operations and related brain activity.     

Identification of Two Novel Genes Encoding 97- to 99-Kilodalton Outer Membrane Proteins of Chlamydia pneumoniae

Two genes encoding 97- to 99-kDa Chlamydia pneumoniae VR1310 outer membrane proteins (Omp4 and Omp5) with mutual similarity were cloned and sequenced. The proteins were shown to be constituents of the C. pneumoniae outer membrane complex, and the deduced amino acid sequences were similar to those of putative outer membrane proteins encoded by the Chlamydia psittaci and Chlamydia trachomatis gene families. By use of a monospecific polyclonal antibody against purified recombinant Omp4, it was shown that without heating, the protein migrated at 65 to 75 kDa in sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Immunoelectron microscopy showed that epitopes of Omp4 were exposed on the surface of C. pneumoniae elementary bodies, reticulate bodies, and outer membrane complex. Proteins encoded by the C. pneumoniae gene family seem to be dominant antigens in experimentally infected mice.     

Plasma ficolin levels and risk of nephritis in Danish patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Given the scavenging properties of ficolins, we hypothesized that variation in the plasma concentrations of the three ficolins may be associated with development of lupus nephritis (LN), type of LN, end-stage renal disease (ESRD), and/or mortality among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). SLE patients attending a Danish tertiary rheumatology referral center were included. Plasma concentrations of ficolin-1, ficolin-2, and ficolin-3 were determined and dichotomized by the median into high and low. LN was defined by clinical criteria; type of LN by renal biopsy; ESRD follow-up time was defined as time from onset of LN to the development of ESRD or censoring at the end of follow-up. The study included 112 SLE patients with median disease duration of 8 years of which 53 (47%) had LN at the time of inclusion. During a median follow-up of 10 years, five patients developed ESRD. Sixteen patients died. Odds ratios (ORs) of LN were 1.2 (95% CI: 0.6–2.7), 4.1 (95% CI: 1.7–9.7), and 0.9 (95% CI: 0.4–2.0) for patients with low ficolin-1, ficolin-2, and ficolin-3 plasma levels, respectively. The distribution of histological classes differed between patients with high and low plasma levels of ficolin-1 (p = 0.009). Patients with high ficolin-1 plasma levels had an increased risk of ESRD. There was no association between the levels of the analyzed plasma ficolins and mortality. Low plasma ficolin-2 levels were associated with an increased risk of having LN. High plasma levels of ficolin-1 were associated with the histological subtype of LN and development of ESRD.     

Every exercise bout matters: linking systemic exercise responses to breast cancer control

Purpose

Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) inhibits estrogen receptor (ER) pathway, which may suppress estrogen-dependent cell proliferation. However, the correlation between AhR stimulation and intratumoral estrogen synthesis, especially through aromatase, has not been reported to date. In the present study, we examined this correlation in breast cancer cells.

Methods

We examined AhR and aromatase immunoreactivity in 29 patients with invasive ductal carcinoma. We performed in vitro studies using three breast carcinoma cell lines, MCF-7, T47D, and MDA-MB-231.

Results

AhR stimulation induced the mRNA expression of the aromatase gene in vitro in three breast carcinoma cell lines, and increased estrogen synthesis in MCF-7 cell line. Results of microarray analysis showed that AhR-induced aromatase expression was associated with BRCA1 induction. Analysis of patients with breast cancer showed a significant positive correlation between intratumoral AhR and aromatase status. We also compared the effects of AhR stimulation on the induction of intratumoral estrogen synthesis and inhibition of the ER signaling pathway, because AhR exerts contradictory effects on estrogen action in breast carcinoma cells. AhR-induced aromatase expression persisted for a significantly longer duration than AhR-induced ER pathway inhibition. Moreover, breast carcinoma cells treated with an AhR agonist tended to show earlier cell proliferation after removing the agonist than cells not treated with the AhR agonist.

Conclusion

The results of the present study suggest that AhR stimulates estrogen-dependent progression of breast carcinoma by inducing aromatase expression under some conditions. These results provide new insights on the possible roles of environmental toxins in breast cancer development.

     

Recreational physical activity and the risk of preeclampsia: a prospective cohort of Norwegian women

Previous case-control studies suggest that recreational physical activity protects against preeclampsia. Using a prospective design, the authors estimated the risk of preeclampsia for pregnant women according to level of physical activity, taking other variables that influence risk into consideration. The data set comprised 59,573 pregnancies from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (1999-2006). Information on physical activity and other exposures was extracted from questionnaire responses given in pregnancy weeks 14-22, whereas diagnosis of preeclampsia was retrieved from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway. Estimation and confounder control was performed with multiple logistic regression. About 24% of pregnant women reported no physical activity, and 7% reported more than 25 such activities per month. The adjusted odds ratio was 0.79 (95% confidence interval: 0.65, 0.96) for preeclampsia when comparing women who exercised 25 times or more per month with inactive women. The association appeared strongest among women whose body mass index was less than 25 kg/m(2) and was absent among women whose body mass index was higher than 30 kg/m(2). These results suggest that the preventive effect of recreational physical activity during pregnancy may be more limited than has been shown in case-control studies and may apply to nonobese women only.