Radiation shielding calculation for interventional radiology: An updated workload survey using a dose monitoring software.

Shielding design is an essential aspect of radiation protection. It is necessary to ensure that barriers safeguard workers, patients, the general public, and the environment from the harmful radiation emitted by X-ray machines. The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) 147 method is widely accepted within the radiation protection experts' (RPEs) community for structural shielding design for medical X-ray imaging facilities.

Leptin resistance before and after obesity: evidence that tissue glucose uptake underlies adipocyte enlargement and liver steatosis/steatohepatitis in Zucker rats from early-life stages.

Background: Leptin resistance occurs in obese patients, but its independent contribution to adiposity and the accompanying metabolic diseases, i.e., diabetes, liver steatosis, and steatohepatitis, remains to be established.

Maternal Obesity and Cardiac Development in the Offspring: Study in Human Neonates and Minipigs.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of maternal overweight on cardiac development in offspring in infants (short term) and minipigs (short and longer term).

Background: The epidemic of overweight involves pregnant women. The uterine environment affects organ development, modulating disease susceptibility.

Elevated glycemia and brain glucose utilization predict BDNF lowering since early life.

Obesity and diabetes associate with neurodegeneration. Brain glucose and BDNF are fundamental in perinatal development. BDNF is related to brain health, food intake and glucose metabolism.

In Vivo Imaging of Tumor Metabolism and Acidosis by Combining PET and MRI-CEST pH Imaging.

The vast majority of cancers exhibit increased glucose uptake and glycolysis regardless of oxygen availability. This metabolic shift leads to an enhanced production of lactic acid that decreases extracellular pH (pHe), a hallmark of the tumor microenvironment. In this way, dysregulated tumor pHe and upregulated glucose metabolism are linked tightly and their relative assessment may be useful to gain understanding of the underlying biology.

Synthesis and In Vivo Imaging of N-(3-[C]Methoxybenzyl)-2-(3-Methoxyphenyl)ethylaniline as a Potential Targeting Agent for P-glycoprotein.

Purpose: The plasma membrane P-glycoprotein (Pgp) is an efflux transporter involved in multidrug resistance and in the onset of neurodegenerative disease. Its function and most mechanisms of action are still under investigation. We developed a C-11-labeled 2-arylethylphenylamine-([C]AEPH) derivative for positron emission tomography (PET), as a novel probe to better understand the activity and the function of Pgp in vivo.

Toward PET imaging of A2B adenosine receptors: a carbon-11 labeled triazinobenzimidazole tracer: Synthesis and imaging of a new A2B PET tracer.

Introduction: A2B adenosine receptors (ARs) are commonly defined as "danger" sensors because they are triggered during cell injury when the endogenous molecule, adenosine, increases rapidly. These receptors, together with the other receptor subtypes (A1, A2A and A3), exert a wide variety of immunomodulating and (cyto)protective effects, thus representing a pivotal therapeutic target for different pathologies including diabetes, tumors, cardiovascular diseases, pulmonary fibrosis and others. The limited availability of potent and selective ligands for A2B ARs has prevented this receptor to emerge both as therapeutic and diagnostic target.

Synthesis and preliminary evaluation in tumor bearing mice of new (18)F-labeled arylsulfone matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors as tracers for positron emission tomography.

New fluorinated, arylsulfone-based matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitors containing carboxylate as the zinc binding group were synthesized as radiotracers for positron emission tomography. Inhibitors were characterized by Ki for MMP-2 in the nanomolar range and by a fair selectivity for MMP-2/9/12/13 over MMP-1/3/14. Two of these compounds were obtained in the (18)F-radiolabeled form, with radiochemical purity and yield suitable for preliminary studies in mice xenografted with a human U-87 MG glioblastoma.

A STAT3-mediated metabolic switch is involved in tumour transformation and STAT3 addiction.

The pro-oncogenic transcription factor STAT3 is constitutively activated in a wide variety of tumours that often become addicted to its activity, but no unifying view of a core function determining this widespread STAT3-dependence has yet emerged. We show here that constitutively active STAT3 acts as a master regulator of cell metabolism, inducing aerobic glycolysis and down-regulating mitochondrial activity both in primary fibroblasts and in STAT3-dependent tumour cell lines. As a result, cells are protected from apoptosis and senescence while becoming highly sensitive to glucose deprivation.

Hyaluronan mixed esters of butyric and retinoic acid affording myocardial survival and repair without stem cell transplantation.

Possible cardiac repair by adult stem cell transplantation is currently hampered by poor cell viability and delivery efficiency, uncertain differentiating fate in vivo, the needs of ex vivo cell expansion, and consequent delay in transplantation after the onset of heart attack. By the aid of magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, and immunohistochemistry, we show that injection of a hyaluronan mixed ester of butyric and retinoic acid (HBR) into infarcted rat hearts afforded substantial cardiovascular repair and recovery of myocardial performance. HBR restored cardiac [(18)F]fluorodeoxyglucose uptake and increased capillary density and led to the recruitment of endogenous Stro-1-positive stem cells.

Multi-ray-based system matrix generation for 3D PET reconstruction.

Iterative image reconstruction algorithms for positron emission tomography (PET) require a sophisticated system matrix (model) of the scanner. Our aim is to set up such a model offline for the YAP-(S)PET II small animal imaging tomograph in order to use it subsequently with standard ML-EM (maximum-likelihood expectation maximization) and OSEM (ordered subset expectation maximization) for fully three-dimensional image reconstruction. In general, the system model can be obtained analytically, via measurements or via Monte Carlo simulations.

In vivo quantification of 5-HT1A-[18F]MPPF interactions in rats using the YAP-(S)PET scanner and a beta-microprobe.

We performed full modeling analysis of 5-HT(1A)-[(18)F]MPPF interactions using the beta-microprobe (beta P) and a YAP-(S)PET scanner. Sixteen Wistar rats were used for beta P (n=5) and YAP-(S)PET (n=5) acquisitions and metabolite studies (n=6). Time-concentration curves were obtained in the hippocampus, raphe dorsalis, frontal cortex and cerebellum, using three injections of [(18)F]MPPF at different specific activities.