Morphology study of mandibular incisive canal in adults based on cone-beam computed tomography / 中华口腔医学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the mandibular incisive canal (MIC) with cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Fifty adults were selected and CBCT was taken. The CBCT data were reconstructed to evaluate the visibility, shape, diameter, length of the MIC and its relationship with mandible.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>MIC could be identified in 100% (100/100) of CBCT with good clarity in 71% (71/100). The diameters (horizontal diameter versus vertical diameter) of MIC became smaller from origin to end (left origin of MIC was 2.17 mm×2.22 mm, left end was 0.82 mm×0.92 mm; right origin of MIC was 2.14 mm×2.08 mm, right end was 0.87 mm×0.86 mm). The left and right mean length of MIC was 17.84 mm and 17.73 mm respectively. In bucca-lingual direction, MIC was close to buccal cortical border, and in vertical direction, MIC was close to lower margin of mandible. The distance from MIC to apex of root was shortest in canine.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>CBCT can identify MIC with high visibility and prominent clarity. In the interforaminal region of mandible, MIC was close to buccal and lower margin of mandible.</p>

A method based on image processing and analyzing technology for estimating the activity of mesenchymal stem cells / 生物医学工程学杂志

Cell culture is one of the usual methods for studying living cell and tissue, the method presented in this paper is based on image processing and analyzing technology for activity estimation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). The existing activity estimation methods are costly, complex and invasive. In this method, thresholding is used to preprocess image and to separate out the growth hallow. Then the area is calculated by counting the pixels of the growth hallow. The changes of the activity estimated by this method are similar to those by corresponding cellular experiments. Compared with the existing methods in biology, medicine or medical cellular science, this method is easier, faster, cost-effective and non-invasive. The proposed method has been proved to be efficient by primary experiments of MSCs.