Clinical Nomogram Using Novel Computed Tomography-Based Radiomics Predicts Survival in Patients With Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Treated With Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy.

Purpose: Improved survival prediction and risk stratification in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) would lead to better prognosis counseling, adjuvant therapy selection, and clinical trial design. We propose the persistent homology (PHOM) score, the radiomic quantification of solid tumor topology, as a solution.

Materials And Methods: Patients diagnosed with stage I or II NSCLC primarily treated with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) were selected (N = 554).

Persistent homology of tumor CT scans is associated with survival in lung cancer.

Purpose: Radiomics, the objective study of nonvisual features in clinical imaging, has been useful in informing decisions in clinical oncology. However, radiomics currently lacks the ability to characterize the overall topological structure of the data. This niche can be filled by persistent homology, a form of topological data analysis that analyzes high-level structure.

Benchmarking R packages for Calculation of Persistent Homology.

Several persistent homology software libraries have been implemented in R. Specifically, the Dionysus, GUDHI, and Ripser libraries have been wrapped by the and CRAN packages. These software represent powerful analysis tools that are computationally expensive and, to our knowledge, have not been formally benchmarked.

Cost analysis of vaccination in tick-mouse transmission of Lyme disease.

Lyme disease is one of the most prevalent and fastest growing vector-borne bacterial illnesses in the United States, with over 25,000 new confirmed cases every year. Humans contract the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi through the bite of the tick Ixodes scapularis. The tick can receive the bacterium from a variety of small mammal and bird species, but the white-footed mouse Peromyscus leucopus is the primary reservoir in the northeastern United States, especially near human settlement.