急性脑梗死患者颈动脉斑块内新生血管超声造影评价及其与血脂指标和超敏C反应蛋白水平的关系研究

目的:探讨急性脑梗死患者颈动脉斑块内新生血管超声造影评价及其与血脂指标和超敏C反应蛋白水平的关系。方法:选取2018年6月到2019年6月期间我院收治的ACI患者186例,根据患者的颈动脉内中膜厚度(IMT)数值以及颈动脉斑块内新生血管超声造影情况将其分为无斑块组、稳定斑块组和易损斑块组。对比各组患者的总胆固醇(TC)、低密度脂蛋白胆固醇(LDL-C)、三酰甘油(TG)、高密度脂蛋白胆固醇(HDL-C)、美国国立卫生研究院卒中量表(NIHSS)评分、改良的Rankin评分(m RS)、超敏C反应蛋白(hs-CRP)水平。结果:易损斑块组和稳定斑块组患者的TC、LDL-C、TG、hs-CRP水平均明显高于无斑块组(P<0.05),易损斑块组患者的LDL-C、hs-CRP水平均明显高于稳定斑块组(P<0.05),易损斑块组和稳定斑块组患者的NIHSS评分和m RS评分均明显高于无斑块组(P<0.05),易损斑块组患者的NIHSS评分和m RS评分均明显高于稳定斑块组(P<0.05),经Pearson分析显示,LDL-C、hs-CRP、NIHSS评分和m RS评分与斑块分级均呈正相关(P<0.05)。结论:颈动脉斑块内新生血管超声造影技术可有效评估ACI患者的斑块稳定性,ACI患者的斑块分级与脂代谢紊乱、机体的炎症反应以及患者病情严重程度和预后均存在一定的相关性。     

急性脑梗死患者颈动脉斑块内新生血管超声造影评价及其与血清YKL-40蛋白及Lp-PLA2水平的相关性分析

目的:探讨急性脑梗死(ACI)患者颈动脉斑块内新生血管超声造影的评估价值,分析其分级与患者病情严重程度、预后以及血清甲壳质酶蛋白(YKL-40)和脂蛋白相关磷脂酶A2(Lp-PLA2)水平的相关性。方法:选择2016年2月至2019年6月我院收治的102例ACI患者,进行颈动脉彩超、超声造影和血清YKL-40、Lp-PLA2检测,采用美国国立卫生院神经功能缺损评分(NIHSS)评价ACI患者病情严重程度,所有患者随访至发病后4周统计预后。结果:易损斑块组颈动脉斑块造影分级、血清YKL-40、Lp-PLA2水平高于稳定斑块组和无斑块组(P0.05)。不同病情程度组、不同预后组颈动脉斑块内新生血管造影分级均具有统计学差异(P0.05)。血清YKL-40、Lp-PLA2水平随着ACI病情程度的加重而升高(P0.05),预后不良组血清YKL-40、Lp-PLA2水平高于预后良好组(P0.05)。Spearman秩相关结果显示,颈动脉斑块内新生血管造影分级与血清YKL-40、Lp-PLA2水平均呈正相关(rs=0.751、0.694,P0.05)。结论:ACI患者的颈动脉易损斑块内新生血管超声造影分级高,其分级与病情严重程度、预后以及血清YKL-40、Lp-PLA2水平均存在密切关系,颈动脉超声造影可为ACI病情危险分层、预后判断提供有效依据。     

超声造影与B型超声对人颈动脉内膜-中层厚度及斑块的诊断价值分析

摘要 目的：探讨超声造影（CEUS）与B型超声在诊断人颈动脉内膜-中层厚度（CIMT）及斑块中的临床应用价值。方法：选取2018年10月至2022年12月内蒙古自治区人民医院健康体检者142例,均行颈动脉B型超声和CEUS成像检查。记录左右侧颈动脉各分段点CIMT近壁和远壁值,然后取平均值。采用半定量的方法进行评分,以确定在B型超声和CEUS成像过程中的CIMT可视化。比较B型超声和CEUS成像技术对斑块检出的差异。根据CIMT平均值进行进一步分组,分析CIMT与亚临床左心功能障碍之间的关系。结果：在B型超声成像上,左右侧颈动脉CIMT远壁的可视化评分均明显高于CIMT近壁,差异有统计学意义（P＜0.05）;在CEUS成像上,左右侧颈动脉CIMT远壁的可视化评分均高于CIMT近壁,差异有统计学意义（P＜0.05）。与B型超声成像模式对比,在CEUS成像模式中左右侧颈动脉CIMT远壁和近壁的可视化评分均得到显著提高,差异有统计学意义（P＜0.05）。142例健康体检者中,B型超声总共检测出271个斑块,CEUS总共检测出293个斑块,斑块检出率组间比较差异有统计学意义（P＜0.05）。随着CIMT平均值的逐渐增大,LVM逐渐减小,LVGLS逐渐增大,差异有统计学意义（P＜0.05）。CIMT平均值的大小与LVEDD、LVESD和LVEF差异无统计学意义（P＞0.05）。结论：CEUS改善了CIMT的可视化,并能更好地检测出颈动脉斑块（主要为低回声斑块）,对预测心血管疾病的发生有一定临床价值。     

hs-CRP、D-二聚体和Lp-PLA2与冠心病患者冠状动脉粥样硬化易损斑块的相关性

目的:研究超敏C反应蛋白(hs-CRP)、D-二聚体和脂蛋白相关磷脂酶A2(Lp-PLA2)与冠心病患者冠状动脉粥样硬化易损斑块的相关性。方法:选择2014年1月~2016年12月在我院进行冠状动脉造影和血管内超声检查的患者106例,按照检查结果分为易损斑块组、稳定斑块组和对照组。检测和比较三组患者的血清hs-CRP、D-二聚体和Lp-PLA2水平,并采用Pearson相关分析探讨其与纤维帽厚度、斑块偏心指数和血管重构指数的相关性。结果:易损斑块组和稳定斑块组的血清hs-CRP、D-二聚体和Lp-PLA2水平明显高于对照组(P0.05),且易损斑块组的血清hs-CRP、D-二聚体和Lp-PLA2水平明显高于稳定斑块组(P0.05)。hs-CRP与纤维帽厚度呈负相关(r=-0.712,P0.05),与斑块偏心指数和血管重构指数呈正相关(r=0.813,0.756,P0.05);D-二聚体与纤维帽厚度呈负相关(r=-0.654,P0.05),与斑块偏心指数和血管重构指数呈正相关(r=0.912,0.853,P0.05);Lp-PLA2与纤维帽厚度呈负相关(r=-0.796,P0.05),与斑块偏心指数和血管重构指数呈正相关(r=0.836,0.729,P0.05)。结论:hs-CRP、D-二聚体和Lp-PLA2与冠心病患者冠状动脉粥样硬化易损斑块具有较高的相关性,可作为评估冠状动脉粥样斑块不稳定性的参考指标。     

颈动脉斑块易损性与血脂指标、炎症因子和冠心病的关系

目的:探讨颈动脉斑块易损性与血脂指标、炎症因子和冠心病的关系。方法:选择2016年1月-2018年1月在我院进行治疗的颈动脉斑块患者95例为研究对象,所有患者均进行颈动脉超声检查,根据超声检查结果的斑块性质将患者分为稳定组(n=43)和易损组(n=52)。检测两组患者的总胆固醇(TC)、甘油三酯(TG)、高密度脂蛋白胆固醇(HDL-C)、低密度脂蛋白胆固醇(LDL-C)等血脂指标,对比两组患者的血清白介素-8(IL-8)、超敏C反应蛋白(hs-CRP)、细胞黏附因子-1(ICAM-1)、趋化因子(RANTES)水平,统计两组患者的冠心病发生率。结果:易损组患者的TC、TG、LDL-C均高于稳定组,HDL-C低于稳定组,组间比较差异有统计学意义(P0.05)。易损组患者的IL-8、hs-CRP、ICAM-1、RANTES水平均高于稳定组,组间比较差异有统计学意义(P0.05)。稳定组冠心病发生率为53.49%(23/43),易损组冠心病发生率为78.85%(41/52),两组冠心病发生率比较差异有统计学意义(P0.05)。结论:颈动脉斑块易损性可导致患者的血脂指标、血清炎症因子指标进一步恶化,也会增加患者出现冠心病的发生机率。     

Carotid artery plaque in women with rheumatoid arthritis and low estimated cardiovascular disease risk: a cross-sectional study

IntroductionWe previously reported that most patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and moderate cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk according to the Systematic COronary Evaluation score (SCORE) experience carotid artery plaque. In this study, we aimed to identify patient characteristics that can potentially predict carotid plaque presence in women with RA and a concurrent low CVD risk according to the SCORE.MethodsA cohort of 144 women with an evaluated low risk of CVD (SCORE value of zero) was assembled amongst 550 consecutive patients with RA that underwent CVD risk factor recording and carotid artery ultrasound. Participants had no established CVD, moderate or severe chronic kidney disease, or diabetes. We assessed carotid plaque(s) presence and its associated patient characteristics.ResultsCarotid artery plaque was present in 35 (24.3%) of women with RA. Age, the number of synthetic disease-modifying agents (DMARDs) and total cholesterol concentrations were independently associated with plaque in multivariable stepwise backward regression analysis (odds ratio (95% confidence interval) = 1.15 (1.07 to 1.24), P <0.0001, 1.51 (1.05 to 2.17), P = 0.03 and 1.66 (1.00 to 2.73) P = 0.04), respectively). The area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating curve (ROC) for the association with plaque was 0.807 (P <0.0001), 0.679 (P = 0.001) and 0.599 (P = 0.08) for age, total cholesterol concentrations and number of synthetic DMARDs used, respectively. The optimal cutoff value in predicting plaque presence for age was 49.5 years with a sensitivity and specificity of 74% and 75%, respectively, and for total cholesterol concentration, it was 5.4 mmol/l with a sensitivity and specificity of 63% and 70%, respectively. The plaque prevalence was 37.5% in patients (n = 80; 55.6%) with age >49.5 years or/and total cholesterol concentration of >5.4 mmol/l, respectively, compared to only 7.8% in those (n = 64; 44.4%) with age ≤49.5 years or/and total cholesterol concentration of ≤5.4 mmol/l, respectively.ConclusionsApproximately one-third of women with RA who experience a low SCORE value and are aged >49.5 years or/and have a total cholesterol concentration of >5.4 mmol/l, experience high-risk atherosclerosis, which requires intensive CVD risk management.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13075-015-0576-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

急性脑梗死患者血清RBP、NLR、PTX3水平与颈动脉粥样硬化斑块稳定性的关系研究

目的:探讨急性脑梗死(ACI)患者血清视黄醇结合蛋白(RBP)、中性粒细胞与淋巴细胞比值(NLR)、内正五聚蛋白3(PTX3)水平与颈动脉粥样硬化斑块稳定性的关系。方法:收集我院2017年1月～2019年1月收治的300例ACI患者,根据颈动脉粥样硬化斑块超声结果分为稳定斑块组(n=173)和不稳定斑块组(n=127),另选同期在我院体检中心进行健康体检的志愿者100例为对照组。对ACI患者和对照组进行RBP、NLR、PTX3、血脂指标的检测,并进行组间统计学对比。采用Pearson检验对ACI患者的RBP、NLR、PTX3与血脂指标的相关性进行分析。结果:三组受试者性别、年龄、体质指数(BMI)、吸烟史、饮酒史等基础资料对比无显著性差异(P0.05)。稳定斑块组、不稳定斑块组患者的RBP、NLR、PTX3水平均高于对照组,且不稳定斑块组上述指标水平高于稳定斑块组(P0.05)。稳定斑块组、不稳定斑块组患者的总胆固醇(TC)、甘油三酯(TG)、低密度脂蛋白(LDL-C)、纤维蛋白原(FIB)水平均高于对照组,且不稳定斑块组上述指标水平高于稳定斑块组(P0.05)。经Pearson检验分析,ACI患者的RBP、NLR、PTX3水平与TC、TG、LDL-C、FIB均呈正相关性(P0.05)。结论:在ACI患者中RBP、NLR、PTX3水平较高,并与患者的颈动脉粥样硬化斑块的稳定性有紧密的关联性。初步推测RBP、NLR、PTX3可能参与颈动脉粥样硬化斑块的形成,进而影响ACI疾病的发生发展过程。     

MRI Plaque Imaging Detects Carotid Plaques with a High Risk for Future Cerebrovascular Events in Asymptomatic Patients

Purpose

The aim of this study was to investigate prospectively whether MRI plaque imaging can identify patients with asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis who have an increased risk for future cerebral events. MRI plaque imaging allows categorization of carotid stenosis into different lesion types (I–VIII). Within these lesion types, lesion types IV–V and VI are regarded as rupture-prone plaques, whereas the other lesion types represent stable ones.

Methods

Eighty-three consecutive patients (45 male (54.2%); age 54–88 years (mean 73.2 years)) presenting with an asymptomatic carotid stenosis of 50–99% according to ECST-criteria were recruited. Patients were imaged with a 1.5-T scanner. T1-, T2-, time-of-flight-, and proton-density weighted studies were performed. The carotid plaques were classified as lesion type I–VIII. Clinical endpoints were ischemic stroke, TIA or amaurosis fugax. Survival analysis and log rank test were used to ascertain statistical significance.

Results

Six out of 83 patients (7.2%) were excluded: 4 patients had insufficient MR image quality; 1 patient was lost-to-follow-up; 1 patient died shortly after the baseline MRI plaque imaging. The following results were obtained by analyzing the remaining 77 patients. The mean time of follow-up was 41.1 months.During follow-up, n = 9 (11.7%) ipsilateral ischemic cerebrovascular events occurred. Only patients presenting with the high-risk lesion types IV–V and VI developed an ipsilateral cerebrovascular event versus none of the patients presenting with the stable lesion types III, VII, and VIII (n = 9 (11.7%) vs. n = 0 (0%) during follow-up). Event-free survival was higher among patients with the MRI-defined stable lesion types (III, VII, and VIII) than in patients with the high-risk lesion types (IV–V and VI) (log rank test P<0.0001).

Conclusions

MRI plaque imaging has the potential to identify patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis who are particularly at risk of developing future cerebral ischemia. MRI could improve selection criteria for invasive therapy in the future.     

Non-invasive characterization of coronary artery atherosclerotic plaque using dual energy CT: Explanation in ex-vivo samples

PurposeIn this study non-calcified plaque composition is evaluated by Dual Energy CT (DECT). Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) has been used to study the Plaque composition. An attempt has been made to explain the DECT results with EDS analysis.MethodsThirty-two ex-vivo human cadaver coronary artery samples were scanned by DECT and data was evaluated to calculate their effective atomic number and electron density (Z_eff & ρ_e) by inversion method. Result of DECT was compared with pathology to assess their differentiating capability. The EDS study was used to explain DECT outcome.ResultsDECT study was able to differentiate vulnerable plaque from stable with 87% accuracy (area under the curve (AUC):0.85 [95% confidence interval {CI}:0.73–0.98}] and Kappa Coefficient (KC):0.75 with respect to pathology. EDS revealed significant compositional difference in vulnerable and stable plaque at p < .05. The weight percentage of higher atomic number elements like F, Na, Mg, S, Si, P, Cl, K and Ca was found to be slightly more in vulnerable plaques as compared to a stable plaque. EDS also revealed a significantly increased weight percentage of nitrogen in stable plaques.ConclusionsThe EDS results were able to explain the outcomes of DECT study. This study conclusively explains the physics of DECT as a tool to assess the nature of non-calcified plaques as vulnerable and stable. The method proposed in this study allows for differentiation between vulnerable and stable plaque using DECT.     

Bone mineral density and carotid atherosclerosis in systemic lupus erythematosus: a controlled cross-sectional study

IntroductionAs osteoporosis is reported to be associated with atherosclerosis in the general population we examined the relationship between bone mass and carotid measurements in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and controls, and possible links between them in SLE.MethodsIn a cross-sectional study, 111 SLE-patient were compared with 111 age- and sex-matched controls, mean age 48.7(12.9) years, 89% were women, of which 51% postmenopausal. Carotid intima media thickness (cIMT), carotid plaque occurrence and echogenicity were determined by B-mode ultrasound and bone mineral density (BMD) by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA).ResultsBMD and cIMT were inversely associated both in patients and controls. Patients, but not controls, with carotid plaque had higher cIMT at low BMD than at normal BMD, p = 0.010. Logistic regression indicated more than doubled odds ratio (OR) of carotid plaque in patients, particularly in post-menopausal women, than in controls in relation to all BMD measurements. For low BMD at hip, significant increased OR for echolucent plaque was shown for patients compared with controls.In patients, significant impact of age, body mass index, smoking, systolic blood pressure, blood lipids, diabetes mellitus, impaired renal function, low levels of complement C3 and C4, history of nephritis, SLE-damage index and ever use of antimalarial was found for association between BMD and higher cIMT and carotid plaque. In multivariate regression, low C4 was independent contributor to association between total BMD and upper cIMT tertile, accounted for OR (95% confidence interval) of 3.2 (1.03-10.01), and also for association with bilateral carotid plaque, OR of 4.8 (1.03-22.66). The contribution of low C4 for the association between BMD and carotid atherosclerosis was enhanced within the second and third tertiles of total BMD.ConclusionThis study is the first to demonstrate inverse association between BMD and carotid measurements in both SLE-patients and controls. Our results suggest that SLE-patients may suffer higher burden of (sub)clinical atherosclerotic disease, especially presence of both echolucent and echogenic plaque, than controls with the same bone mineral status. Low complement C4 seems to play an important role in earlier development of carotid atherosclerosis already within (sub)normal ranges of total BMD in patients.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13075-015-0595-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Stable feature selection based on the ensemble L 1 -norm support vector machine for biomarker discovery

Background

Lately, biomarker discovery has become one of the most significant research issues in the biomedical field. Owing to the presence of high-throughput technologies, genomic data, such as microarray data and RNA-seq, have become widely available. Many kinds of feature selection techniques have been applied to retrieve significant biomarkers from these kinds of data. However, they tend to be noisy with high-dimensional features and consist of a small number of samples; thus, conventional feature selection approaches might be problematic in terms of reproducibility.

Results

In this article, we propose a stable feature selection method for high-dimensional datasets. We apply an ensemble L ₁ -norm support vector machine to efficiently reduce irrelevant features, considering the stability of features. We define the stability score for each feature by aggregating the ensemble results, and utilize backward feature elimination on a purified feature set based on this score; therefore, it is possible to acquire an optimal set of features for performance without the need to set a specific threshold. The proposed methodology is evaluated by classifying the binary stage of renal clear cell carcinoma with RNA-seq data.

Conclusion

A comparison with established algorithms, i.e., a fast correlation-based filter, random forest, and an ensemble version of an L ₂ -norm support vector machine-based recursive feature elimination, enabled us to prove the superior performance of our method in terms of classification as well as stability in general. It is also shown that the proposed approach performs moderately on high-dimensional datasets consisting of a very large number of features and a smaller number of samples. The proposed approach is expected to be applicable to many other researches aimed at biomarker discovery.

     

Surface Roughness Detection of Arteries via Texture Analysis of Ultrasound Images for Early Diagnosis of Atherosclerosis

There is a strong research interest in identifying the surface roughness of the carotid arterial inner wall via texture analysis for early diagnosis of atherosclerosis. The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy of texture analysis methods for identifying arterial roughness in the early stage of atherosclerosis. Ultrasound images of common carotid arteries of 15 normal mice fed a normal diet and 28 apoE^−/− mice fed a high-fat diet were recorded by a high-frequency ultrasound system (Vevo 2100, frequency: 40 MHz). Six different texture feature sets were extracted based on the following methods: first-order statistics, fractal dimension texture analysis, spatial gray level dependence matrix, gray level difference statistics, the neighborhood gray tone difference matrix, and the statistical feature matrix. Statistical analysis indicates that 11 of 19 texture features can be used to distinguish between normal and abnormal groups (p<0.05). When the 11 optimal features were used as inputs to a support vector machine classifier, we achieved over 89% accuracy, 87% sensitivity and 93% specificity. The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity for the k-nearest neighbor classifier were 73%, 75% and 70%, respectively. The results show that it is feasible to identify arterial surface roughness based on texture features extracted from ultrasound images of the carotid arterial wall. This method is shown to be useful for early detection and diagnosis of atherosclerosis.     

Accurate Prediction of Immunogenic T-Cell Epitopes from Epitope Sequences Using the Genetic Algorithm-Based Ensemble Learning

BackgroundT-cell epitopes play the important role in T-cell immune response, and they are critical components in the epitope-based vaccine design. Immunogenicity is the ability to trigger an immune response. The accurate prediction of immunogenic T-cell epitopes is significant for designing useful vaccines and understanding the immune system.MethodsIn this paper, we attempt to differentiate immunogenic epitopes from non-immunogenic epitopes based on their primary structures. First of all, we explore a variety of sequence-derived features, and analyze their relationship with epitope immunogenicity. To effectively utilize various features, a genetic algorithm (GA)-based ensemble method is proposed to determine the optimal feature subset and develop the high-accuracy ensemble model. In the GA optimization, a chromosome is to represent a feature subset in the search space. For each feature subset, the selected features are utilized to construct the base predictors, and an ensemble model is developed by taking the average of outputs from base predictors. The objective of GA is to search for the optimal feature subset, which leads to the ensemble model with the best cross validation AUC (area under ROC curve) on the training set.ResultsTwo datasets named ‘IMMA2’ and ‘PAAQD’ are adopted as the benchmark datasets. Compared with the state-of-the-art methods POPI, POPISK, PAAQD and our previous method, the GA-based ensemble method produces much better performances, achieving the AUC score of 0.846 on IMMA2 dataset and the AUC score of 0.829 on PAAQD dataset. The statistical analysis demonstrates the performance improvements of GA-based ensemble method are statistically significant.ConclusionsThe proposed method is a promising tool for predicting the immunogenic epitopes. The source codes and datasets are available in S1 File.     

Ligation of macrophage Fcγ receptors recapitulates the gene expression pattern of vulnerable human carotid plaques

Stroke is a leading cause of death in the United States. As ～60% of strokes result from carotid plaque rupture, elucidating the mechanisms that underlie vulnerability is critical for therapeutic intervention. We tested the hypothesis that stable and vulnerable human plaques differentially express genes associated with matrix degradation. Examination established that femoral, and the distal region of carotid, plaques were histologically stable while the proximal carotid plaque regions were vulnerable. Quantitative RT-PCR was used to compare expression of 22 genes among these tissues. Distal carotid and femoral gene expression was not significantly different, permitting the distal carotid segments to be used as a paired control for their corresponding proximal regions. Analysis of the paired plaques revealed differences in 16 genes that impact plaque stability: matrix metalloproteinases (MMP, higher in vulnerable), MMP modulators (inhibitors: lower, activators: higher in vulnerable), activating Fc receptors (FcγR, higher in vulnerable) and FcγR signaling molecules (higher in vulnerable). Surprisingly, the relative expression of smooth muscle cell and macrophage markers in the three plaque types was not significantly different, suggesting that macrophage distribution and/or activation state correlates with (in)stability. Immunohistochemistry revealed that macrophages and smooth muscle cells localize to distinct and non-overlapping regions in all plaques. MMP protein localized to macrophage-rich regions. In vitro, treatment of macrophages with immune complexes, but not oxidized low density lipoprotein, C-reactive protein, or TNF-α, induced a gene expression profile similar to that of the vulnerable plaques. That ligation of FcγR recapitulates the pattern of gene expression in vulnerable plaques suggests that the FcγR → macrophage activation pathway may play a greater role in human plaque vulnerability than previously appreciated.     

Frequency based feature selection method using whale algorithm

Feature selection is the problem of finding the best subset of features which have the most impact in predicting class labels. It is noteworthy that application of feature selection is more valuable in high dimensional datasets. In this paper, a filter feature selection method has been proposed on high dimensional binary medical datasets – Colon, Central Nervous System (CNS), GLI_85, SMK_CAN_187. The proposed method incorporates three sections. First, whale algorithm has been used to discard irrelevant features. Second, the rest of features are ranked based on a frequency based heuristic approach called Mutual Congestion. Third, majority voting has been applied on best feature subsets constructed using forward feature selection with threshold τ = 10. This work provides evidence that Mutual Congestion is solely powerful to predict class labels. Furthermore, applying whale algorithm increases the overall accuracy of Mutual Congestion in most of the cases. The findings also show that the proposed method improves the prediction with selecting the less possible features in comparison with state of the arts.https://github.com/hnematzadeh     

Deep radiomic model based on the sphere–shell partition for predicting treatment response to chemotherapy in lung cancer

BackgroundThe prognosis of chemotherapy is important in clinical decision-making for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.ObjectivesTo develop a model for predicting treatment response to chemotherapy in NSCLC patients from pre-chemotherapy CT images.Materials and MethodsThis retrospective multicenter study enrolled 485 patients with NSCLC who received chemotherapy alone as a first-line treatment. Two integrated models were developed using radiomic and deep-learning-based features. First, we partitioned pre-chemotherapy CT images into spheres and shells with different radii around the tumor (0–3, 3–6, 6–9, 9–12, 12–15 mm) containing intratumoral and peritumoral regions. Second, we extracted radiomic and deep-learning-based features from each partition. Third, using radiomic features, five sphere–shell models, one feature fusion model, and one image fusion model were developed. Finally, the model with the best performance was validated in two cohorts.ResultsAmong the five partitions, the model of 9–12 mm achieved the highest area under the curve (AUC) of 0.87 (95% confidence interval: 0.77–0.94). The AUC was 0.94 (0.85–0.98) for the feature fusion model and 0.91 (0.82–0.97) for the image fusion model. For the model integrating radiomic and deep-learning-based features, the AUC was 0.96 (0.88–0.99) for the feature fusion method and 0.94 (0.85–0.98) for the image fusion method. The best-performing model had an AUC of 0.91 (0.81–0.97) and 0.89 (0.79–0.93) in two validation sets, respectively.ConclusionsThis integrated model can predict the response to chemotherapy in NSCLC patients and assist physicians in clinical decision-making.     

比较两种测量方法获得的血压波动对老年颈动脉斑块的影响

目的:比较两种不同血压波动测定方法测定的血压波动与颈动脉斑块发生的关系。方法:以1456名患有动脉硬化老年男性患者为研究对象,监测患者24 h动态血压,根据有无颈动脉斑块将入选患者分为2组:颈动脉斑块组(n=1012)和无颈动脉斑块组(n=444),分别采用经典的标准差方法(SD法)和个体血压波动测定方法(个体法)分别测定每位患者的血压波动,回顾性分析这两种方法测定的血压波动与颈动脉斑块形成的关联性。结果:SD法测定颈动脉斑块组24 h收缩期血压波动(SBPV)、白天SBPV、夜间SBPV以及24 h舒张期血压波动(DBPV)水平均明显高于无颈动脉斑块组(P0.05);而白天和夜间DBPV差异无统计学意义。个体法测定颈动脉斑块组24 h SBPV、白天SBPV、24 h DBPV以及白天DBPV水平较无颈动脉斑块组均明显升高(P0.05);夜间SBPV和夜间DBPV差异无统计学意义(P0.05)。比较颈动脉斑块组SBPV值出现次数,SD法测定SBPV最多的是10-15 mmHg(n=541),其次是大于15 mmHg(n=399);个体法测定颈动脉斑块组SBPV值出现次数最多的是0-8 mmHg(n=490),其次是8-10 mmHg(n=350)。结论:在老年男性动脉硬化相关疾病患者中,血压波动与颈动脉斑块的形成有着密切的关系,两种方法均可测定血压波动,但以个体血压波动测定方法更加敏感。