Specific immune cell and lymphatic vessel signatures identified by image analysis in renal cancer.

Anti-angiogenic therapy and immune checkpoint inhibition are novel treatment strategies for patients with renal cell carcinoma. Various components and structures of the tumor microenvironment are potential predictive biomarkers and also attractive treatment targets. Macrophages, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, vascular and lymphatic vessels represent an important part of the tumor immune environment, but their functional phenotypes and relevance for clinical outcome are yet ill defined.

Evaluation of Simulated Lesions as Surrogates to Clinical Lesions for Thoracic CT Volumetry: The Results of an International Challenge.

Rationale And Objectives: To evaluate a new approach to establish compliance of segmentation tools with the computed tomography volumetry profile of the Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Alliance (QIBA); and determine the statistical exchangeability between real and simulated lesions through an international challenge.

Materials And Methods: The study used an anthropomorphic phantom with 16 embedded physical lesions and 30 patient cases from the Reference Image Database to Evaluate Therapy Response with pathologically confirmed malignancies. Hybrid datasets were generated by virtually inserting simulated lesions corresponding to physical lesions into the phantom datasets using one projection-domain-based method (Method 1), two image-domain insertion methods (Methods 2 and 3), and simulated lesions corresponding to real lesions into the Reference Image Database to Evaluate Therapy Response dataset (using Method 2).

New insights into the inflamed tumor immune microenvironment of gastric cancer with lymphoid stroma: from morphology and digital analysis to gene expression.

Background: Gastric cancer with lymphoid stroma (GCLS) is characterized by prominent stromal infiltration of T-lymphocytes. The aim of this study was to investigate GCLS biology through analysis of clinicopathological features, EBV infection, microsatellite instability (MSI), immune gene-expression profiling and PD-L1 status in neoplastic cells and tumor immune microenvironment.

Methods: Twenty-four GCLSs were analyzed by RNA in situ hybridization for EBV (EBER), PCR/fragment analysis for MSI, immunohistochemistry (PD-L1, cytokeratin, CD3, CD8), co-immunofluorescence (CK/PD-L1, CD68/PD-L1), NanoString gene-expression assay for immune-related genes and PD-L1 copy number alterations.

Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Cardiac Progenitor Cells in Cases of Myocarditis and Cardiomyopathy.

We aimed to identify and quantify CD117 and CD90 endogenous cardiac progenitor cells (CPC) in human healthy and diseased hearts. We hypothesize that these cells perform a locally acting, contributing function in overcoming medical conditions of the heart by endogenous means. Human myocardium biopsies were obtained from 23 patients with the following diagnoses: Dilatative cardiomyopathy (DCM), ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM), myocarditis, and controls from healthy cardiac patients.

Tissue Phenomics for prognostic biomarker discovery in low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer.

Tissue Phenomics is the discipline of mining tissue images to identify patterns that are related to clinical outcome providing potential prognostic and predictive value. This involves the discovery process from assay development, image analysis, and data mining to the final interpretation and validation of the findings. Importantly, this process is not linear but allows backward steps and optimization loops over multiple sub-processes.

Comparative evaluation of three proliferation markers, Ki-67, TOP2A, and RacGAP1, in bronchopulmonary neuroendocrine neoplasms: Issues and prospects.

The classification of bronchopulmonary neuroendocrine neoplasms (BP-NEN) into four tumor entities (typical carcinoids (TC), atypical carcinoids (AC), small cell lung cancers (SCLC), large cell neuroendocrine lung carcinomas (LCNEC)) is difficult to perform accurately, but important for prognostic statements and therapeutic management decisions. In this regard, we compared the expression of three proliferation markers, Ki-67, Topoisomerase II alpha (TOP2A), and RacGAP1, in a series of tumor samples from 104 BP-NEN patients (24 TC, 21 AC, 52 SCLC, 7 LCNEC) using different evaluation methods (immunohistochemistry (IHC): Average evaluation, Hotspot evaluation, digital image analysis; RT-qPCR).The results indicated that all three markers had increased protein and mRNA expression with poorer differentiation and correlated well with each other, as well as with grading, staging, and poor survival.

Algorithm Variability in the Estimation of Lung Nodule Volume From Phantom CT Scans: Results of the QIBA 3A Public Challenge.

Rationale And Objectives: Quantifying changes in lung tumor volume is important for diagnosis, therapy planning, and evaluation of response to therapy. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of multiple algorithms on a reference data set. The study was organized by the Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Alliance (QIBA).

Inter-Method Performance Study of Tumor Volumetry Assessment on Computed Tomography Test-Retest Data.

Rationale And Objectives: Tumor volume change has potential as a biomarker for diagnosis, therapy planning, and treatment response. Precision was evaluated and compared among semiautomated lung tumor volume measurement algorithms from clinical thoracic computed tomography data sets. The results inform approaches and testing requirements for establishing conformance with the Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Alliance (QIBA) Computed Tomography Volumetry Profile.

Somatostatin receptor immunohistochemistry in neuroendocrine tumors: comparison between manual and automated evaluation.

Background: Manual evaluation of somatostatin receptor (SSTR) immunohistochemistry (IHC) is a time-consuming and cost-intensive procedure. Aim of the study was to compare manual evaluation of SSTR subtype IHC to an automated software-based analysis, and to in-vivo imaging by SSTR-based PET/CT.

Methods: We examined 25 gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (GEP-NET) patients and correlated their in-vivo SSTR-PET/CT data (determined by the standardized uptake values SUVmax,-mean) with the corresponding ex-vivo IHC data of SSTR subtype (1, 2A, 4, 5) expression.

Cognition Network Technology prototype of a CAD system for mammography to assist radiologists by finding similar cases in a reference database.

Purpose: We present a new approach for computer-aided detection and diagnosis in mammography based on Cognition Network Technology (CNT). Originally designed for image processing, CNT has been extended to also perform context- and knowledge-driven analysis of tabular data. For the first time using this technology, an application was created and evaluated for fully automatic searching of patient cases from a reference database of verified findings.

Prevalence of CD44+/CD24-/low cells in breast cancer may not be associated with clinical outcome but may favor distant metastasis.

Purpose: Breast cancer is composed of phenotypically diverse populations of cancer cells. The ability to form breast tumors has been shown by in vitro/in vivo studies to be restricted to epithelial tumor cells with CD44(+)/CD24(-/low) characteristics. Validation of these findings with respect to detection in clinical samples, prognosis, and clinical relevance is in demand.

Evaluation of murine liver transmission electron micrographs by an innovative object-based quantitative image analysis system (Cellenger).

Background: Transmission electron micrographs are widely used to demonstrate tissue damage. However, the results are qualitative and dependent on the experience of the investigator. Recently, a new multiscale object-based quantitative image analyzing systems (Cellenger) has been introduced to study highly textured black-and-white images.

Cardiovascular monitoring of elective aortic aneurysm repair using methods of chaos analysis.

Introduction: Biological signals like arterial blood pressure (ABP) and electrocardiograms are usually displayed in a linear fashion. The often very complex structure may, however, be better described by phase space plots and time-delayed vectors, enabling an advantageous display of the dynamics contained in the signal. The potentials of such a display were investigated during elective aortic aneurysm repair, where profound haemodynamic changes frequently occur.

Time discrete, near infrared photoplethysmography (NIRP) for non-invasive investigation of the volume pulse in man.

Unlabelled: In pulse oximetry the principles of photoplethysmography are used for determination of heart rate and in some devices to also display the volume pulse. It has been suggested, that a more detailed analysis of the signal may allow quantitative analysis of peripheral hemodynamic events. We describe a new computer assisted time discrete analysis of the volume pulse, studying its reliability and the method s fundamental assumption of a linear relationship between changes in amplitude and changes in time sequences of the volume pulse.