Discrimination between glioblastoma multiforme and solitary metastasis using morphological features derived from the p:q tensor decomposition of diffusion tensor imaging

The management and treatment of high‐grade glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and solitary metastasis (MET) are very different and influence the prognosis and subsequent clinical outcomes. In the case of a solitary MET, diagnosis using conventional radiology can be equivocal. Currently, a definitive diagnosis is based on histopathological analysis on a biopsy sample. Here, we present a computerised decision support framework for discrimination between GBM and solitary MET using MRI, which includes: (i) a semi‐automatic segmentation method based on diffusion tensor imaging; (ii) two‐dimensional morphological feature extraction and selection; and (iii) a pattern recognition module for automated tumour classification. Ground truth was provided by histopathological analysis from pre‐treatment stereotactic biopsy or at surgical resection. Our two‐dimensional morphological analysis outperforms previous methods with high cross‐validation accuracy of 97.9% and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.975 using a neural networks‐based classifier. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

3-D shape analysis of palatal surface in patients with unilateral complete cleft lip and palate

Facial development of patients with unilateral complete cleft lip and palate (UCLP) is associated with many problems including deformity of the palate. The aim of this study was to evaluate palatal morphology and variability in patients with UCLP compared with Czech norms using methods of geometric morphometrics. The study was based on virtual dental cast analysis of 29 UCLP patients and 29 control individuals at the age of 15 years.The variability of palatal shape in UCLP patients was greater than that in nonclefted palates. Only 24% of clefted palates fell within the variability of controls. The palatal form of UCLP patients (range from 11.8 to 17.2 years) was not correlated with age.Compared with control palates, palates of UCLP patients were narrower, more anteriorly than posteriorly. Apart from the praemaxilla region, they were also shallower, and the difference increased posteriorly. The UCLP palate was characterised by the asymmetry of its vault. The maximum height of the palatal vault was anterior on the clefted side, whereas it was posterior on the nonclefted side. The slope of the UCLP palate was more inclined compared with the control group. The praemaxilla was therefore situated more inferiorly.     

Prevalence of heterophoria in a population of school children in central China:the Anyang Childhood Eye Study

AIM:To investigate the prevalence of heterophoria and the relationship between heterophoria and refractive error in a school-based study conducted in central China.METHODS:A total of 23637 th-grade children were recruited into the cross-sectional school-based Anyang Childhood Eye Study(ACES)by cluster sampling method.Heterophoria was examined using alternate cover and cover-uncover testing.The Maddox rod and prism test were conducted at 33 cm and 6 m distance fixation.Uncorrected viual acuity(UCVA)and best-corrected viual acuity(BCVA)were recorded as logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution(logM AR)with cycloplegic autorefraction by administrating of Mydrin-P and 1.0%cyclopentolate.Hyperopia was defined as the spherical equivalent(SE)refraction of+0.50 D or greater,and higher hyperopia was defined as+2.00 D or greater.Emmetropia was defined as the SE refraction in the range of-0.49 to+0.49 D,and myopia was in the SE refraction range from-0.50 D to less.RESULTS:Totally 2260 students in grade 7 were examined.Response rate among eligible children was 95.64%.Totally 486 children,22.66%of the population,were diagnosed with heterophoria in which 479 were diagnosed with exophoria at near distance,and 6 with esophoria.Totally 89(4.15%)children were diagnosed with heterophoria in which 82 had exophoria,and 7 had esophoria at far distance.Exophoria was common at near fixation(22.33%).Myopia was examined to be related to exophoria at near distance(OR 3.03,95%CI 2.33-3.95)and far distance fixation(OR 1.90,95%CI 1.09-3.32).CONCLUSION:Exophoria is a predominant heterophoria for 7 th-grade junior school in central China.Significant associations are discovered between heterophoria and refractive error.Hyperopia is associated with esophoria,and myopia is associated with exophoria.     

Treatment of ingrown nail with a special device composed of shape‐memory alloy

Ingrown nail is a common nail problem resulting in pain and disability in daily life. Recently, a new treatment modality for an ingrown nail was reported that used a device composed of shape‐memory alloy, K‐D. The aim of the present study was to determine the efficacy, recurrence rate and complications of K‐D. Between June 2010 and September 2012, 24 patients (31 nails) underwent treatment of symptomatic incurved nails with a K‐D. Patients were evaluated at pretreatment and during every visit. The mean age of the patients involved was 43.4 years. The mean period of follow up was 161 days. The mean maintenance period was 41 days. The right first toenail was the most common site. Almost ingrown nails healed and the nail deformity was corrected after the procedure. Among the 31 nails, seven of the ingrown nails recurred during follow up (22.6% recurrence rate). The recurrence rate of the patients with stage 1, 2 and 3 ingrown nails was 22.2%, 33.3% and 14.2%, respectively. The majority of patients were very satisfied. There were no side‐effects in most patients except loss of nail in one patient. K‐D has some advantages such as simple application steps, no deformity after the procedure, high patient satisfaction and obvious effect compared to other non‐invasive and invasive methods.     

Is the callus shape an optimal response to a mechanobiological stimulus?

After bone trauma, the natural response to restore bone function is the formation of a callus around the fracture. Although several bone healing models have been developed, none have effectively perceived early callus formation and shape as the result of an optimal response to a mechanobiological stimulus.In this paper, we investigate which stimulus regulates early callus formation. An optimal design problem is formulated, and several objective functions are defined, each using a different mechanobiological stimulus. The following stimuli were analysed: the interfragmentary strain, the second invariant of the deviatoric strain tensor and a generic inflammatory factor. Different regions for callus formation were also evaluated, such as the gap region, the periosteum and the periosteum border. Each stimulus was computed using the finite element method, and the callus shape was optimised using the steepest descent method.The results demonstrated that the inflammatory factor approach, the interfragmentary strain and the second invariant of the deviatoric strain tensor over the inner gap provided the best results when compared with histological callus shapes. Therefore, this work suggests that callus growth can be an optimal mechanobiological response to either local mechanical instability and/or local inflammatory reaction.     

Sutural growth restriction and modern human facial evolution: an experimental study in a pig model

Facial size reduction and facial retraction are key features that distinguish modern humans from archaic Homo. In order to more fully understand the emergence of modern human craniofacial form, it is necessary to understand the underlying evolutionary basis for these defining characteristics. Although it is well established that the cranial base exerts considerable influence on the evolutionary and ontogenetic development of facial form, less emphasis has been placed on developmental factors intrinsic to the facial skeleton proper. The present analysis was designed to assess anteroposterior facial reduction in a pig model and to examine the potential role that this dynamic has played in the evolution of modern human facial form. Ten female sibship cohorts, each consisting of three individuals, were allocated to one of three groups. In the experimental group (n = 10), microplates were affixed bilaterally across the zygomaticomaxillary and frontonasomaxillary sutures at 2 months of age. The sham group (n = 10) received only screw implantation and the controls (n = 10) underwent no surgery. Following 4 months of post‐surgical growth, we assessed variation in facial form using linear measurements and principal components analysis of Procrustes scaled landmarks. There were no differences between the control and sham groups; however, the experimental group exhibited a highly significant reduction in facial projection and overall size. These changes were associated with significant differences in the infraorbital region of the experimental group including the presence of an infraorbital depression and an inferiorly and coronally oriented infraorbital plane in contrast to a flat, superiorly and sagittally infraorbital plane in the control and sham groups. These altered configurations are markedly similar to important additional facial features that differentiate modern humans from archaic Homo, and suggest that facial length restriction via rigid plate fixation is a potentially useful model to assess the developmental factors that underlie changing patterns in craniofacial form associated with the emergence of modern humans.     

A statistical assembled deformable model (SAMTUS) for vasculature reconstruction

Although many deformable models have been proposed in medical applications for segmenting isolated structures in the human anatomy, not much of such work had been done on tubular structures such as the vasculature. In this paper, we propose a statistical assembled model for tubular structures (SAMTUS) to segment entire tubular structure from three-dimensional (3D) volumetric data. To our knowledge, there is no literature about the statistical deformable model for entire tubular structures. Specifically, the statistical tubular model is composed of a statistical axis model (SAM) and a statistical surface model (SSM). Both of them are assembled from a set of branch segments through the control points. Instead of searching for fuzzy correspondence along tubular axes or surfaces, we build point matching between feature points along tubular segments, and train SAM and SSM independently to characterize, respectively, the axial and the cross-sectional variation of the entire structure. In this way, more accurate point correspondence can be established, and a larger number of deformation modes can be captured. Our SAMTUS-based segmentation process consists of three stages: initialization, model fitting and final refinement. The experimental results demonstrate that the algorithm obtains good quantifications on the morphology and volume of the vasculature of the zebrafish which is being used increasingly as a specimen for drug screening and genomic research.     

Shape and mechanics in thalattosuchian (Crocodylomorpha) skulls: implications for feeding behaviour and niche partitioning

Variation in modern crocodilian and extinct thalattosuchian crocodylomorph skull morphology is only weakly correlated with phylogeny, implying that factors other than evolutionary proximity play important roles in determining crocodile skull shape. To further explore factors potentially influencing morphological differentiation within the Thalattosuchia, we examine teleosaurid and metriorhynchid skull shape variation within a mechanical and dietary context using a combination of finite element modelling and multivariate statistics. Patterns of stress distribution through the skull were found to be very similar in teleosaurid and metriorhynchid species, with stress peaking at the posterior constriction of the snout and around the enlarged supratemporal fenestrae. However, the magnitudes of stresses differ, with metriorhynchids having generally stronger skulls. As with modern crocodilians, a strong linear relationship between skull length and skull strength exists, with short‐snouted morphotypes experiencing less stress through the skull than long‐snouted morphotypes under equivalent loads. Selection on snout shape related to dietary preference was found to work in orthogonal directions in the two families: diet is associated with snout length in teleosaurids and with snout width in metriorhynchids, suggesting that teleosaurid skulls were adapted for speed of attack and metriorhynchid skulls for force production. Evidence also indicates that morphological and functional differentiation of the skull occurred as a result of dietary preference, allowing closely related sympatric species to exploit a limited environment. Comparisons of the mechanical performance of the thalattosuchian skull with extant crocodilians show that teleosaurids and long‐snouted metriorhynchids exhibit stress magnitudes similar to or greater than those of long‐snouted modern forms, whereas short‐snouted metriorhynchids display stress magnitudes converging on those found in short‐snouted modern species. As a result, teleosaurids and long‐snouted metriorhynchids were probably restricted to lateral attacks of the head and neck, but short‐snouted metriorhynchids may have been able to employ the grasp and shake and/or ‘death roll’ feeding and foraging behaviours.