Establishment and preliminary application of personalized three-dimensional reconstruction of thyroid gland with automatic detection of thyroid nodules based on ultrasound videos.

PURPOSE: A well display of the spatial location of thyroid nodules in the thyroid is important for surgical path planning and surgeon-patient communication. The aim of this study was to establish a three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction method of the thyroid gland, thyroid nodule, and carotid artery with automatic detection based on two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound videos, and to evaluate its clinical value. METHODS: Ultrasound videos, including the thyroid gland with nodule, isthmus of thyroid gland, and ipsilateral carotid artery, were recorded. BC-UNet, MTN-Net, and RDPA-U-Net network models were innovatively employed for segmentation of the thyroid glands, the thyroid nodules, and the carotid artery respectively. Marching Cubes algorithm was used for reconstruction, while Laplacian smoothing algorithm was employed to smooth the 3D model surface. Using this model, 20 patients and 15 surgeons completed surveys on the effectiveness of this model for the pre-surgery demonstration of nodule location as well as surgeon-patient communication. RESULTS: The thyroid gland with nodule, isthmus of gland, and carotid artery were reconstructed and displayed. With the 3D model, the understanding of the spatial location of thyroid nodules improved in all three surgeon groups, eliminating the influence of professional levels. In the patient survey, the patients' understanding of the thyroid nodule location and procedure for surgery were significantly improved. In addition, with the 3D model, the time for doctors to explain to patients was significantly reduced (16.75  vs. 8.85 min, p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, this is the first report of constructing a 3D thyroid model using a deep learning technique for personalized thyroid segmentation based on 2D ultrasound videos. The preliminary clinical application showed that it was conducive to the comprehension of the location of thyroid nodules for surgeons and patients, with significant improvement on the efficiency of surgeon-patient communication.

Study on the clinical application value of V-shaped anatomical approach in laparoscopic complex cholecystectomy / 国际外科学杂志

Objective:To investigate the "V" -shaped anatomical approach in the prevention of bile duct injury during laparoscopic complex cholecystectomy and its clinical application value.Methods:The patients with complex gallbladder from June 2020 to June 2021 in the First Affiliated Hospital of Baotou Medical College, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology were selected as the research objects, and they were randomly divided into observation group and control group, with 60 cases in each group. All patients underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The observation group underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy through the triangle "V" shape of the gallbladder, and the control group did not use the "V" shape anatomy. The operation status, complications and postoperative recovery of the two groups of patients were compared.The measurement data of normal distribution were expressed by ( Mean± SD), and t test was used for comparison between groups, and chi-square test was used for comparison between groups of count data. Results:The conversion rate to laparotomy, intraoperative bleeding and operation time of observation group were 3.33%, (97.31±13.27) mL, (65.27±13.82) min, which were significantly lower than those in the control group[8.33%, (111.27±25.18) mL, (81.35±12.12) min], the differences between the two groups were statistically significant( P<0.05). The incidence of biliary injury, total incidence of complications of the observation group were 0, 8.33%, which were significantly lower than those in the control group(6.67%, 28.33%), the differences between the two groups were statistically significant( P<0.05). The postoperative exhaust time, drainage tube retention time, hospitalization cost and hospitalization time of the observation group were (9.89±3.58) h, (32.58±5.17) h, (3 142.92±137.93) yuan, (4.73±1.42) d, and significantly lower than those in the control group [(11.65±2.45) h, (46.18±6.49) h, (3 424.29±156.34) yuan, (5.38±1.25) d], the differences between the two groups were statistically significant ( P<0.05). Conclusions:For laparoscopic complex cholecystectomy, the use of the triangular "V" -shaped gallbladder anatomical approach is more conducive to the operation, can reduce the patient's operation time and intraoperative blood loss, reduce the rate of intraoperative conversion to laparotomy, and reduce biliary tract injury and bile leakage. Such as the incidence of complications, prompting patients to recover as soon as possible, it is worthy of clinical application and promotion.