Identifying brain neoplasms using dye-enhanced multimodal confocal imaging

Brain tumors cause significant morbidity and mortality even when benign. Completeness of resection of brain tumors improves quality of life and survival; however, that is often difficult to accomplish. The goal of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of using multimodal confocal imaging for intraoperative detection of brain neoplasms. We have imaged different types of benign and malignant, primary and metastatic brain tumors. We correlated optical images with histopathology and evaluated the possibility of interpreting confocal images in a manner similar to pathology. Surgical specimens were briefly stained in 0.05 mg/ml aqueous solution of methylene blue (MB) and imaged using a multimodal confocal microscope. Reflectance and fluorescence signals of MB were excited at 642 nm. Fluorescence emission of MB was registered between 670 and 710 nm. After imaging, tissues were processed for hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) histopathology. The results of comparison demonstrate good correlation between fluorescence images and histopathology. Reflectance images provide information about morphology and vascularity of the specimens, complementary to that provided by fluorescence images. Multimodal confocal imaging has the potential to aid in the intraoperative detection of microscopic deposits of brain neoplasms. The application of this technique may improve completeness of resection and increase patient survival.     

Stroke and antiphospholipid syndrome—antiphospholipid antibodies are a risk factor for an ischemic cerebrovascular event

Clinical Rheumatology - Testing for antiphospholipid antibodies could be an important part in determining the cause of a cerebrovascular event (CVE). Currently, it is also unknown whether...     

Chronic stimulation of Nod2 mediates tolerance to bacterial products

The Toll-like receptor (TLR) and nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (Nod) families of proteins are critical for bacterial recognition, and, acutely, this frequently leads to proinflammatory responses. Polymorphisms in Nod2 (CARD 15) are associated with an increased likelihood of developing Crohn's disease. However, it is not yet clear how Nod2 dysfunctions lead to defects in human intestinal immune homeostasis. Studies to date have focused on functions after acute, rather than chronic, Nod2 stimulation. However, the intestine is an environment of chronic bacterial product exposure with tolerance to luminal flora. We therefore hypothesized that long-term Nod2 stimulation contributes to down-regulation of inflammatory responses from innate immune receptors. We found that pretreatment with muramyl dipeptide (MDP), a ligand for Nod2, significantly decreased production of the proinflammatory cytokines TNF-alpha, IL-8, and IL-1beta upon Nod2, TLR4, and TLR2 restimulation in primary human monocyte-derived macrophages from a large cohort of individuals. Importantly, TNF-alpha-induced production of proinflammatory cytokines remained intact in these same cells. MDP-stimulated macrophages from Crohn's disease-relevant Leu1007insC Nod2 homozygote individuals were deficient in their ability to cross-tolerize to subsequent treatment with TLR2 and TLR4 ligands. We show that acute Nod2 stimulation induced IRAK-1 activation, and that chronic MDP treatment down-regulated IRAK-1 activation upon Nod2 or TLR4 restimulation. In a subset of individuals, chronic Nod2 stimulation induced expression of the IRAK-1 inhibitory protein IRAK-M. Significantly, intestinal macrophages exhibit tolerance to MDP per production of inflammatory cytokines. These results illustrate a role for chronic stimulation of Nod2 in mediating tolerance to bacterial products.     

Effective infrared absorption coefficient for photothermal radiometric measurements in biological tissues

Although photothermal radiometric (PTR) measurements commonly employ broad-band signal acquisition to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, all reported studies apply a fixed infrared (IR) absorption coefficient to simplify the involved signal analysis. In samples with large spectral variation of micro(lambda) in mid-IR, which includes most biological tissues, the selection of the effective IR absorption coefficient value (micro(eff)) can strongly affect the accuracy of the result. We present a novel analytical approach for the determination of optimal micro(eff) from spectral properties of the sample and radiation detector. In extensive numerical simulations of pulsed PTR temperature profiling in human skin using three common IR radiation detectors and several acquisition spectral bands, we demonstrate that our approach produces viable values micro(eff). Two previously used analytical estimations perform much worse in the same comparison.