Current Medical Imaging - Online First
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Imaging Findings of Primary Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Liver: Case Presentation and Literature Review
Authors: Yichuan Mao, Xiuzhen Yao, Gui Xu, Feng Yang, Xiangqun Zhou, Xiaoqin Wu, Weiqun Ao and Jun LinAvailable online: 17 March 2025More LessIntroduction:Primary Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Liver (PSCCL) is an exceptionally rare clinical entity characterized by diagnostic challenges, aggressive behavior, and poor prognosis. Globally, few studies have investigated PSCCL.
Case Presentation:We report the case of a 76-year-old male patient with PSCCL, detailing his clinical presentation and imaging findings, to offer insights into the preoperative diagnosis of this disease. The patient presented with upper abdominal pain that had lasted for over two weeks without any specific triggers. Laboratory tests revealed abnormal liver function. Ultrasound examination showed a large, solid, hypoechoic mass in the right anterior lobe of the liver with heterogeneous internal echoes. Color Doppler imaging detected limited blood flow signals. Contrast-enhanced Computed Tomography (CT) of the whole abdomen revealed a low-density mass with indistinct margins in the right lobe of the liver, showing uneven and progressive peripheral enhancement. Comprehensive whole-body CT, gastroscopy, and liver biopsy were performed, excluding metastatic disease in other organs. Based on the pathological findings from a percutaneous ultrasound-guided liver biopsy, the patient was diagnosed with PSCCL.
Conclusion:PSCCL is a rare malignancy that presents significant diagnostic difficulties, often evading easy identification through clinical and imaging examinations. This case report aims to contribute to improving the preoperative diagnosis of PSCCL.
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Primary Cardiac Angiosarcoma Diagnosed by Multimodality Imaging: A Case Report: Multimodality Imaging of Cardiac Angiosarcoma
Authors: Qin Zhang, Shuying Luo, Hua Ye, Tao Yang, Tijiang Zhang, Bangguo Li and Hong YuAvailable online: 17 March 2025More LessBackground:Primary cardiac tumors are rare. Most primary cardiac tumors are benign, with approximately 10.83% being malignant. We present a rare case of Primary Cardiac Angiosarcoma (PCA) with multiple metastases diagnosed using multimodality imaging, to enhance the understanding of PCA among clinicians and radiologists.
Case Description:A 29-year-old woman presented to our hospital with a 2-day history of chest tightness, chest pain, palpitations, and dyspnea after physical activity. Ultrasonography and Computed Tomography (CT) of the heart revealed a mass in the right atrium. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging suggested either a large cardiac lymphoma or angiosarcoma. The histopathological diagnosis confirmed a cardiac angiosarcoma. Positron Emission Tomography-Computed Tomography (PET/CT) revealed intense 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) uptake in the right side of the heart, with a maximum standardized uptake value of 10.9. Three months later, the patient was re-examined using abdominal CT, echocardiography, and PET/CT. PET/CT revealed increased 18F-FDG uptake which had become more extensive, with multifocal metastatic nodules in both the lungs and mediastinum. The patient was lost to follow-up after being discharged on May 1, 2022.
Conclusion:The combined evaluation using multimodality imaging plays a vital role in determining the precise size and localization of the PCA, detecting distant metastases, and assessing patient prognosis.
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Differentiation of Minute Pulmonary Meningothelial-Like Nodules and Adenocarcinoma In situ with CT Radiomics
Authors: Yawen Zhang, Leilei Zhou, Jun Yao, Hai Xu, Yu-Chen Chen and Xiaomin YongAvailable online: 14 March 2025More LessBackground:An effective preoperative diagnosis between minute pulmonary meningothelial-like nodules (MPMNs) and adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS) can provide clinicians with appropriate treatment strategies.
Objective:This study aimed to differentiate MPMNs from AIS via computed tomography (CT) radiomics approaches.
Methods:Clinical and imaging data from fifty-one patients diagnosed with MPMNs and 55 patients diagnosed with AIS were collected from Jiangsu Province Hospital and Nanjing First Hospital from January 2016 to December 2022. All patients underwent chest CT scans before surgery. All CT images were segmented with ITK-SNAP software, and the radiomics features were further extracted with the Python PyRadiomics package. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analysis was used to select the optimal radiomics features for the construction of the model. The ROC curve was used to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of the model.
Results:After feature reduction and selection, 16 radiomics features were selected to construct the radiomics model. In the test set, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of the k-nearest neighbor model were 87.5%, 88.9%, 96.9%, 77.8%, and 88.5%, respectively, and the AUC of the ROC curve was 0.969 (95% CI: 0.72-1.00).
Conclusion:The CT radiomics model has exhibited high diagnostic value in the differential diagnosis between MPMNs and AIS.
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Intracranial Structural Malformations in Children in Tibet: CT and MRI Findings in a Single Tertiary Center
Authors: Xuan Yin, Dawa Ciren, Ciren Guojie, Guofu Zhang, Jimei Wang and He ZhangAvailable online: 02 January 2025More LessObjectives:The objective of this study was to summarize the findings of children’s intracranial congenital or developmental malformations found during imaging procedures in the Tibetan plateau.
Methods:We retrospectively reviewed the imaging data of the suspected patients who presented with the central nervous system (CNS) malformations and were enrolled either through the clinic or after ultrasound examinations between June 2019 and June 2023 in our institution. All imaging data were interpreted by two experienced radiologists through consensus reading.
Results:In this study, we recruited 36 patients, including two neonates, 17 infants and 17 children. Seven cases underwent an MRI examination, while the others had a CT scan. Polygyria and pachygyria malformation were the most common type of congenital neurological malformations (7 cases, 31.8%), followed by cystic changes of the cerebral parenchyma (3 cases, 13.6%). Cerebral atrophy was the most common type of secondary CNS abnormality(8 cases, 57.1%), followed by communicative hydrocephalus (3 cases, 21.4%). Five patients in the congenital group and 4 patients in the secondary group had complex malformations. In the current study group, there were 8 deaths, 12 cases with neurological sequelae, 1 case with normal development, and 15 cases lost to follow-up. There were no significant differences between the primary and secondary CNS groups in terms of the outcome for both the infants and children groups.
Conclusions:CNS malformations in the Tibetan Plateau are associated with high mortality and morbidity rates. Better utilization of imaging modalities could help design tailored treatments as early as possible.
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Displaced Femoral Neck Fractures Treated with Percutaneous Compression Plates in Elderly Individuals: An Effect Analysis Based on Imaging
Authors: Huli Liu, Kai Zhao, Ying Yang, Liansheng Dai, Sanjun Gu, Haifeng Li and Yu LiuAvailable online: 02 January 2025More LessBackground:The effects of percutaneous compression plate (PCP) internal fixation for femoral neck fractures (FNFs) in elderly individuals have rarely been reported. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the efficacy of PCCP internal fixation for displaced FNFs in elderly individuals based on imaging.
Methods:The clinical data of 32 elderly patients with FNFs treated with PCCP from January 2015 to December 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. The average age of the participants was 68.7 ± 4.8 years (range, 65–80 years). Nineteen patients had Garden type III, and 13 patients had Garden type IV. Six patients had Pauwels type I, 15 patients had type II, and 11 patients had type III. Twelve patients had Singh index level IV, 14 patients had level V, and 6 patients had level VI. The time from injury to operation ranged from 3–14 days, with an average of 5.8 days. A radiological assessment was conducted. The relationships between efficacy and age, Pauwels classification, the Singh index, and the Garden alignment index were analyzed.
Results:At postoperative week 1, fracture reduction was acceptable in 31 patients. The time to start walking was 5.7 ± 3.7 days. The follow-up time ranged from 2.1 to 4 years, with an average of 2.7 years. There were 2 cases of delayed healing and no cases of nonunion or internal fixation failure. The healing time ranged from 4–8 months, with an average of 4.9 months. Fifteen patients (46.9%) showed healing with shortening of the femoral neck, and 3 patients (9.4%) had avascular necrosis (AVN). Correlation analysis revealed that healing with shortening of the femoral neck was positively correlated with age and the Singh index and that AVN was positively correlated with the Pauwels classification (p < 0.05).
Conclusion:The efficacy of PCCPs for internal fixation of displaced FNFs in elderly individuals without severe osteoporosis is satisfactory, especially for patients who can ambulate early postoperatively. The main complications are healing with shortening of the femoral neck and AVN, which are prone to occur in patients with severe osteoporosis and Pauwels type III FNFs, respectively.
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Enhanced Detection of Colon Diseases via a Fused Deep Learning Model with an Auxiliary Fusion Layer and Residual Blocks on Endoscopic Images
Authors: Rakesh Kumar, Vatsala Anand, Sheifali Gupta, Ahmad Almogren, Salil Bharany, Ayman Altameem and Ateeq Ur RehmanAvailable online: 02 January 2025More LessBackground:Colon diseases are major global health issues that often require early detection and correct diagnosis to be effectively treated. Deep learning approaches and recent developments in medical imaging have demonstrated promise in increasing diagnostic accuracy.
Objective:This work suggests that a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model paired with other models can detect different gastrointestinal (GI) abnormalities or diseases from endoscopic images via the fusion of residual blocks, including alpha dropouts (αDO) and auxiliary fusing layers.
Methods:To automatically diagnose colon disorders from medical images, this work explores the use of a fused deeplearning model that incorporates the EfficientNetB0, MobileNetV2, and ResNet50V2 architectures. By integrating these features, the fused model aims to improve the classification accuracy and robustness for various colon diseases. The proposed model incorporates an auxiliary fusion layer and a fusion residual block. By combining diverse features through an auxiliary fusion layer, the network can create more comprehensive and richer representations, capturing intricate patterns that might be missed by single-source processing. The fusion residual block incorporates residual connections, which help mitigate the vanishing gradient problem. By adding the input of the block directly to its output, these connections facilitate better gradient flow during backpropagation, allowing for deeper and more stable training. A wide range of endoscopic images are used to assess the proposed model, offering an accurate depiction of various disease scenarios.
ResultsThe proposed model, with an auxiliary fusion layer and residual blocks, exhibited an enormous reduction in overfitting and performance saturation. The proposed model achieved an impressive 98.03% training accuracy and 97.90% validation accuracy after evaluation, outperforming the majority of typically trained DCNNs in terms of efficiency and accuracy.
Conclusion:The proposed method developed a lightweight model that correctly identifies disorders of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract by combining advanced techniques, including feature fusion, residual learning, and self-normalization.
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