Optimizing neurointerventional procedures: an algorithm for embolization coil detection and automated collimation to enable dose reduction.

Purpose: Monitoring radiation dose and time parameters during radiological interventions is crucial, especially in neurointerventional procedures, such as aneurysm treatment with embolization coils. The algorithm presented detects the presence of these embolization coils in medical images. It establishes a bounding box as a reference for automated collimation, with the primary objective being to enhance the efficiency and safety of neurointerventional procedures by actively optimizing image quality while minimizing patient dose.

Virus Filtration and Flow Variation: An Approach To Evaluate Any Potential Impact on Virus Retention.

Unlabelled: Virus removal by filtration has been an important improvement for the safety margins of plasma-derived medicinal products and has become a standard manufacturing process step for recombinant proteins. While the mechanism of action was initially considered to be strictly size-based, it has recently been recognized that a more complex interaction of the specific filter membrane and its pore architecture with filtrate flow rates may potentially influence the level of virus removal. Based on this improved understanding, parameters beyond the traditional state-of-the-art may need to be included into the design and control of these processes, and the validity of virus removal data generated in small-scale models for the manufacturing scale processes may need to be reevaluated.

Parallel evaluation of broad virus detection methods.

The testing for adventitious viruses is of critical importance during development and production of biological products. The recent emergence and ongoing development of broad virus detection methods calls for an evaluation of whether these methods can appropriately be implemented into current adventitious agent testing procedures. To assess the suitability of several broad virus detection methods, a comparative experimental study was conducted: four virus preparations, which were spiked at two different concentrations each into two different cell culture media, were sent to four investigators in a blinded fashion for analysis with broad virus detection methods such as polymerase chain reaction-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (PCR-ESI/MS), microarray, and two approaches utilizing massively parallel sequencing.

The evolution of down-scale virus filtration equipment for virus clearance studies.

The role of virus filtration in assuring the safety of biopharmaceutical products has gained importance in recent years. This is due to the fundamental advantages of virus filtration, which conceptually can remove all pathogens as long as their size is larger than the biomolecule of commercial interest, while at the same time being neutral to the biological activity of biopharmaceutical compound(s). Major progress has been made in the development of adequate filtration membranes that can remove even smaller viruses, or possibly even all.

Chikungunya virus and the safety of plasma products.

Background: Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) outbreaks were previously restricted to parts of Africa, Indian Ocean Islands, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. In 2007, however, the first autochthonous CHIKV transmission was reported in Europe. High-level viremia, a mosquito vector that is also present in large urban areas of Europe and America, and uncertainty around the resistance of this Alphavirus toward physiochemical inactivation processes raised concerns about the safety of plasma derivatives.