Analyzed outcome for embolization of hepatic carcinoma by C-arm angiographic computed tomography.

PURPOSE: This study evaluated and monitored the outcome of angiographic embolization of hepatic carcinoma by real-time C-arm angiographic computed tomography under number of tumors, size of tumors, and patient's age.METHODS AND MARTIALS: In total, 142 patients underwent angiographic embolization of hepatic carcinoma. The control group, 71 patients, underwent conventional angiographic (CA) embolization of hepatic carcinoma. The experimental group, 71 patients, underwent C-arm angiographic computed tomography (CCT) embolization of hepatic carcinoma. The numbers of angiographic embolization, number of tumors, size of tumors, and patients ages were recorded for comparisons between groups by analysis of variance (ANOVA) with cross-interaction and the chi-square test (cross table). RESULTS: The age ranges were 20-84 and 35-84 years old for the experimental and control groups respectively. Average number of angiographic embolizations of hepatic carcinomas were 2.63 ± 1.84 and 5.32 ± 2.01 for the experimental and control groups. The number of angiographic embolizations under number of tumors, size of tumors, and patients ages between groups were significantly different (P< 0.05). The effective analyses of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) by CCT were significant by chi-square test (P< 0.05) under ⩽ 3 cm and patients aged ⩽ 60. CONCLUSION: The main advantage by CCT for undergoing TACE under tumor size smaller than 3 cm and numbers of tumor smaller 3 times were more significantly effective than those by CA. The CCT combined with TACE had high potentially reduced numbers of undergoing TACE.

Melanogenesis inhibition by homoisoflavavone sappanone A from Caesalpinia sappan.

Homoisoflavanone, sappanone A, was isolated from Caesalpinia sappan and proven to dose-dependently inhibit both melanogenesis and cellular tyrosinase activity via repressing tyrosinase gene expression in mouse B16 melanoma cells. To our knowledge, sappanone A is the first homoisoflavanone to be discovered with melanogenesis inhibitory activity. Our results give a new impetus to the future search for other homoisoflavanone melanogenesis inhibitors.

Quantifying liver cirrhosis by extracting significant features from MRI T2 image.

Most patients with liver cirrhosis must undergo a series of clinical examinations, including ultrasound imaging, liver biopsy, and blood tests. However, the quantification of liver cirrhosis by extracting significant features from a T2-weighted magnetic resonance image (MRI) provides useful diagnostic information in clinical tests. Sixty-two subjects were randomly selected to participate in this retrospective analysis with assigned to experimental and control groups. The T2-weighted MRI was obtained and to them dynamic adjusted gray levels. The extracted features of the image were standard deviation (SD), mean, and entropy of pixel intensity in the region of interest (ROI). The receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve, 95% confidence intervals, and kappa statistics were used to test the significance and agreement. The analysis of area under ROC shows that SD, mean, and entropy in the ROI were significant between the experimental group and the control group. Smaller values of SD, mean, and entropy were associated with a higher probability of liver cirrhosis. The agreements between the extracted features and diagnostic results were shown significantly (P < 0.001). In this investigation, quantitative features of SD, mean, and entropy in the ROI were successfully computed by the dynamic gray level scaling of T2-weighted MRI with high accuracy.