scholarly journals Objective Monitoring of mTOR Inhibitor Therapy by Three-Dimensional Facial Analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 840-844 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth S. Baynam ◽  
Mark Walters ◽  
Hugh Dawkins ◽  
Matthew Bellgard ◽  
Anne R. Halbert ◽  
...  

With advances in therapeutics for rare, genetic and syndromic diseases, there is an increasing need for objective assessments of phenotypic endpoints. These assessments will preferentially be high precision, non-invasive, non-irradiating, and relatively inexpensive and portable. We report a case of a child with an extensive lymphatic vascular malformation of the head and neck, treated with an mammalian target of Rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitor that was assessed using 3D facial analysis. This case illustrates that this technology is prospectively a cost-effective modality for treatment monitoring, and it supports that it may also be used for novel explorations of disease biology for conditions associated with disturbances in the mTOR, and interrelated, pathways.

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 422-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Neto ◽  
António Costa-Ferreira ◽  
Nuno Leal ◽  
Margarida Machado ◽  
Ana Reis

Background and aim: Facial defects (from neoplasms, trauma, etc.) can be functionally and emotionally devastating. A non-invasive treatment for these defects is the application of external prostheses. Conventionally, these prostheses are fabricated by an anaplastologist through a manual procedure, which is an expensive and time-consuming approach. Current advances in computational and engineering tools report an improvement in design and manufacturing of silicone prostheses. This demand motivated this study that aims to develop a methodology for fabricating customized nasal prostheses. Technique: In this study, an 80-year-old woman with a total defect of the nose is considered as case-study. The proposed methodology entails six tasks: (a) data acquisition, (b) three-dimensional reconstruction, (c) prosthesis design, (d) moulds fabrication, (e) prosthesis manufacturing and (f) final fittings. Discussion: The presented approach showed encouraging outcomes since it saves time, reduces costs and allows the achievement of prosthesis with the minimum contact and discomfort to the patient, disclosing excellent aesthetic and functional results. Clinical relevance Custom-made nasal prostheses with minimum contact and discomfort for the patient can be achieved using an engineering approach based on digital technologies and additive manufacturing that is cost-effective and less time-consuming than the manual procedure.


Author(s):  
H.W. Deckman ◽  
B.F. Flannery ◽  
J.H. Dunsmuir ◽  
K.D' Amico

We have developed a new X-ray microscope which produces complete three dimensional images of samples. The microscope operates by performing X-ray tomography with unprecedented resolution. Tomography is a non-invasive imaging technique that creates maps of the internal structure of samples from measurement of the attenuation of penetrating radiation. As conventionally practiced in medical Computed Tomography (CT), radiologists produce maps of bone and tissue structure in several planar sections that reveal features with 1mm resolution and 1% contrast. Microtomography extends the capability of CT in several ways. First, the resolution which approaches one micron, is one thousand times higher than that of the medical CT. Second, our approach acquires and analyses the data in a panoramic imaging format that directly produces three-dimensional maps in a series of contiguous stacked planes. Typical maps available today consist of three hundred planar sections each containing 512x512 pixels. Finally, and perhaps of most import scientifically, microtomography using a synchrotron X-ray source, allows us to generate maps of individual element.


2012 ◽  
Vol 153 (40) ◽  
pp. 1570-1577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Nemes ◽  
Anita Kalapos ◽  
Péter Domsik ◽  
Tamás Forster

Three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography is a new cardiac imaging methodology, which allows three-dimensional non-invasive evaluation of the myocardial mechanics. The aim of this review is to present this new tool emphasizing its diagnostic potentials and demonstrating its limitations, as well. Orv. Hetil., 2012, 153, 1570–1577.


2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 2897-2908
Author(s):  
Mohammed S.Aljohani

Tomography is a non-invasive, non-intrusive imaging technique allowing the visualization of phase dynamics in industrial and biological processes. This article reviews progress in Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography (ECVT). ECVT is a direct 3D visualizing technique, unlike three-dimensional imaging, which is based on stacking 2D images to obtain an interpolated 3D image. ECVT has recently matured for real time, non-invasive 3-D monitoring of processes involving materials with strong contrast in dielectric permittivity. In this article, ECVT sensor design, optimization and performance of various sensors seen in literature are summarized. Qualitative Analysis of ECVT image reconstruction techniques has also been presented.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Jemianne Bautista Jia ◽  
Eric Mastrolonardo ◽  
Mateen Soleman ◽  
Ilya Lekht

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) is a cost-effective, quick, and non-invasive imaging modality that has yet to be incorporated in uterine artery embolization (UAE). We present two cases that demonstrate the utility of CEUS in UAE for the identification of uterine-ovarian collaterals which otherwise can result in ineffective fibroid treatment and non-target embolization.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Nadeem Ashraf ◽  
Muhammad Hussain ◽  
Zulfiqar Habib

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a major cause of blindness in diabetic patients. The increasing population of diabetic patients and difficulty to diagnose it at an early stage are limiting the screening capabilities of manual diagnosis by ophthalmologists. Color fundus images are widely used to detect DR lesions due to their comfortable, cost-effective and non-invasive acquisition procedure. Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) of DR based on these images can assist ophthalmologists and help in saving many sight years of diabetic patients. In a CAD system, preprocessing is a crucial phase, which significantly affects its performance. Commonly used preprocessing operations are the enhancement of poor contrast, balancing the illumination imbalance due to the spherical shape of a retina, noise reduction, image resizing to support multi-resolution, color normalization, extraction of a field of view (FOV), etc. Also, the presence of blood vessels and optic discs makes the lesion detection more challenging because these two artifacts exhibit specific attributes, which are similar to those of DR lesions. Preprocessing operations can be broadly divided into three categories: 1) fixing the native defects, 2) segmentation of blood vessels, and 3) localization and segmentation of optic discs. This paper presents a review of the state-of-the-art preprocessing techniques related to three categories of operations, highlighting their significant aspects and limitations. The survey is concluded with the most effective preprocessing methods, which have been shown to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the CAD systems.


Heliyon ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. e06645
Author(s):  
Charlotte Theresa Trebing ◽  
Sinan Sen ◽  
Stefan Rues ◽  
Christopher Herpel ◽  
Maria Schöllhorn ◽  
...  

Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 3373
Author(s):  
Milena Matuszczak ◽  
Jack A. Schalken ◽  
Maciej Salagierski

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common cancer in men worldwide. The current gold standard for diagnosing PCa relies on a transrectal ultrasound-guided systematic core needle biopsy indicated after detection changes in a digital rectal examination (DRE) and elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level in the blood serum. PSA is a marker produced by prostate cells, not just cancer cells. Therefore, an elevated PSA level may be associated with other symptoms such as benign prostatic hyperplasia or inflammation of the prostate gland. Due to this marker’s low specificity, a common problem is overdiagnosis, which leads to unnecessary biopsies and overtreatment. This is associated with various treatment complications (such as bleeding or infection) and generates unnecessary costs. Therefore, there is no doubt that the improvement of the current procedure by applying effective, sensitive and specific markers is an urgent need. Several non-invasive, cost-effective, high-accuracy liquid biopsy diagnostic biomarkers such as Progensa PCA3, MyProstateScore ExoDx, SelectMDx, PHI, 4K, Stockholm3 and ConfirmMDx have been developed in recent years. This article compares current knowledge about them and their potential application in clinical practice.


Author(s):  
L Epprecht ◽  
L Qingsong ◽  
N Stenz ◽  
S Hashimi ◽  
T Linder

Abstract Objective Ventilation of the middle ear and mastoid air cells is believed to play an important role in the pathogenesis of chronic ear disease. Traditionally, ventilation is assessed by computed tomography. However, this exposes patients to cumulative radiation injury. In cases with a perforation in the tympanic membrane, tympanometry potentially presents a non-invasive alternative to measure the ventilated middle-ear and mastoid air cell volume. This study hypothesised that total tympanometry volume correlates with ventilated middle-ear and mastoid air cell volume. Method Total tympanometry volume was compared with ventilated middle-ear and mastoid air cell volume on computed tomography scans in 20 tympanic membrane perforations. Results There was a high correlation between tympanometry and computed tomography volumes (r = 0.78; p < 0.001). A tympanometry volume more than 2 ml predicted good ventilation on computed tomography. Conclusion These results may help reduce the need for pre-operative computed tomography in uncomplicated cases with tympanic membrane perforations.


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