A Gradient-Based Approach for Breast DCE-MRI Analysis.

Breast cancer is the main cause of female malignancy worldwide. Effective early detection by imaging studies remains critical to decrease mortality rates, particularly in women at high risk for developing breast cancer. Breast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a common diagnostic tool in the management of breast diseases, especially for high-risk women. However, during this examination, both normal and abnormal breast tissues enhance after contrast material administration. Specifically, the normal breast tissue enhancement is known as background parenchymal enhancement: it may represent breast activity and depends on several factors, varying in degree and distribution in different patients as well as in the same patient over time. While a light degree of normal breast tissue enhancement generally causes no interpretative difficulties, a higher degree may cause difficulty to detect and classify breast lesions at Magnetic Resonance Imaging even for experienced radiologists. In this work, we intend to investigate the exploitation of some statistical measurements to automatically characterize the enhancement trend of the whole breast area in both normal and abnormal tissues independently from the presence of a background parenchymal enhancement thus to provide a diagnostic support tool for radiologists in the MRI analysis.

Diabetes mellitus and retinopathy.

The role of somatostatin and growth hormone in eye diseases recently became a matter of interest because of its link with proliferative diabetic retinopathy. In diabetic patients the pathologic proliferation of blood vessels as a result of retinal ischemia is a major cause of blindness. The hypoxic portions of the retina release angiogenic factors, stimulating neovascularization. Somatostatin is a natural peptide hormone that affects the release of a number of other hormones, such as growth hormone, glucagon, insulin and gastrin. The somatostatin analog promises to be safe and effective treatment for severe diabetic retinopathy. This compound has been shown to block the local and systemic production of insulin-like growth factor 1 and growth hormone, which promote the angiogenesis and endothelial cell proliferation associated with proliferative retinopathy. Several studies have confirmed that using somatostatin analogs to block insulin-like growth factor 1 production is effective in reducing neovascularization and preventing disease progression to proliferative stage of diabetic retinopathy. Long-acting somatostatin analogs are currently being tested for the treatment of diabetic retinopathy. The development of somatostatin analogs with increased selectivity for receptor subtypes will provide improved outcomes in the management of patients with diabetic retinopathy.

[Role of spiral computerized tomography in the staging of pancreatic carcinoma]. / Ruolo della Tomografia Computerizzata spirale nella stadiazione del carcinoma pancreatico.

INTRODUCTION: Few pancreatic carcinomas (5-22%) are resectable at the time of diagnosis because this lesion is seldom diagnosed in an early stage. Unresectability is mainly due to the presence of metastases to the liver, peritoneum and lymph nodes and to tumor spread especially to the portal mesenteric trunk where it can invade, compress, reduce, or occlude the vessels. We investigated the diagnostic yield of multiplanar and 3D spiral CT in the assessment of pancreatic carcinoma resectability. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Twenty-seven patients with histologically confirmed pancreatic head cancer were submitted to spiral CT and color Doppler US in the Surgical Clinic I of the Bologna University. The examination results were correlated with the intraoperative findings of careful inspection and palpation and of US studies of the pancreatic mass and adjacent structures. The tumors were classified in relation to some CT parameters: tumor size (T), infiltration of the stomach (S) and/or duodenum, lymph nodes (N) or distant (M) metastases, involvement of vascular structures (V), particularly of portal or superior mesenteric vein, or superior mesenteric artery. Five grades of vascular involvement were considered. The results of these techniques were correlated with intraoperative findings from careful inspection and palpation and with US studies of the pancreatic mass and adjacent structures. RESULTS: Spiral CT revealed vascular involvement in 19 of 27 cases (70.4%): involvement of portal and superior mesenteric vein was found in 14 (73.6%), superior mesenteric vein was involved in 2 (10.6%), the portal vein in one (2%) and, finally the portal, superior mesenteric vein and superior mesenteric artery in 2 cases (10.6%). The spiral CT results were confirmed intraoperatively in 26 of 27 cases (96.3%); spiral CT did not reveal hepatic metastasis only in one case. Spiral CT with multiplanar reconstructions had very high specificity and sensitivity (100%) in the assessment of vascular involvement, while color Doppler US had the same specificity but lower sensitivity (84.2%). Spiral CT was less sensitive (80%) in the detection of liver metastases. CONCLUSIONS: We believe that spiral CT is currently the best technique for pancreatic carcinoma staging, providing useful information for correct surgical planning.