Aortic Artery and Cardiac Valve Calcification are Associated with Mortality in Chinese Hemodialysis Patients: A 3.5 Years Follow-up / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>This study was to investigate the relationship among aortic artery calcification (AAC), cardiac valve calcification (CVC), and mortality in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>All MHD patients in Shanghai Ruijin Hospital in July 2011 were included. To follow up for 42 months, clinical data, predialysis blood tests, echocardiography, and lateral lumbar X-ray plain radiography results were collected. Plasma FGF23 level was measured using a C-terminal assay.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Totally, 110 MHD patients were involved in this study. Of which, 64 (58.2%) patients were male, the mean age was 55.2 ± 1.4 years old, and the median dialysis duration was 29.85 (3.0-225.5) months. About 25.5% of the 110 MHD patients had CVC from echocardiography while 61.8% of the patients had visible calcification of aorta from lateral lumbar X-ray plain radiography. After 42 months follow-up, 25 (22.7%) patients died. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that patients with AAC or CVC had a significant greater number of all-cause and cardiovascular deaths than those without. In multivariate analyses, the presence of AAC was a significant factor associated with all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR]: 3.149, P = 0.025) in addition to lower albumin level and lower 25-hydroxy Vitamin D (25(OH)D) level. The presence of CVC was a significant factor associated with cardiovascular mortality (HR: 3.800, P = 0.029) in addition to lower albumin level and lower 25(OH)D level.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Lateral lumbar X-ray plain radiography and echocardiography are simple methods to detect AAC and CVC in dialysis patients. The presence of AAC and CVC was independently associated with mortality in MHD patients. Regular follow-up by X-ray and echocardiography could be a useful method to stratify mortality risk in MHD patients.</p>

Preliminary application of whole body diffusion weighted imaging in screening metastasis / 中国医学科学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the feasibility of whole body diffusion weighted imaging (WB-DWI) in screening metastasis.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>WB-DWI was performed in 24 patients diagnosed with various types of primary tumors. The three-dimensional maximum intensity projection reconstruction and black-and-white flip technique were used to observe metastatic lesions, and the results were compared with those of bone scintigraphy.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>By WB-DWI scanning sequence at b = 800 s/mm2, all the bone lesions found by bone scintigraphy in the cohort were well identified, and other lesions of soft tissue and organs were also well demonstrated. Its screening capability was equivalent with bone scintigraphy in screening metastases in bones (P = 0.062).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>WB-DWI was practicable with the parameter settings attempted in metastases screening.</p>

Evaluation of the correlation between cerebral blood volume and permeability surface from CT perfusion images with glioma grade / 中华放射学杂志

Objective To evaluate the correlation between cerebral blood volume and permeability surface by using muhislice CT perfusion imaging with glioma grade.Methods Ninteen patients with gliomas underwent conventional MR and multislice CT perfusion imaging preoperatively.These patients were divided into low grade and high grade groups which were correspond to WHO Ⅱ grade gliomas and WHO Ⅲ or Ⅳ grade gliomas respectively.CT data were transferred to on-line working station and processed to obtain time-signal curves,color perfusion maps and calculated perfusion parameters,including cerebral blood volume(CBV),cerebral blood flow(CBF),mean transit time(MTT)and permeability surfaces (PS)in tumoral parenchyma.Kruskal-Wallis test and correlation of CBV and PS was assessed by using SPSS 11.0 software.Results The median of CBV and PS in low-grade and high-grade glioma were 2.7, 6.5 ml/100 g;0.389,12.810 ml?100 g~(-1)?min~(-1),respectively,corresponding t value were 12.907, 13.500 with P