Publications by authors named "Justinas Besusparis"

Background: The presence of a relative apical sparing (RAS) echocardiographic strain pattern raises a suspicion of underlying cardiac amyloidosis (CA). However, it is also increasingly observed in patients with aortic stenosis (AS). We aimed to evaluate the prevalence, dynamics, and clinical characteristics of the RAS strain pattern in severe AS patients who had been referred for surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR).

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  • * This study applied digital image analysis (DIA) to analyze whole slide images from 254 ER-positive HER2-negative BC patients, focusing on the prognostic value of ITH indicators, particularly using Haralick's texture metrics for Ki67.
  • * The findings revealed that Ki67 entropy, which assesses the spatial arrangement of tumor cells, is a significant predictor of BC-specific survival, surpassing the traditional proliferation rate evaluations and highlighting the importance of ITH in prognosis.
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  • The study focuses on diagnosing glomerular diseases through visual assessment, which can be inconsistent, leading to exploration of digital and machine-learning methods for better accuracy.
  • Researchers compared three modifications of a convolutional neural network (CNN) to recognize nine glomerular injury patterns, using expert nephropathologists for validation and generating visual heatmaps for analysis.
  • The spatially guided CNN modification outperformed others, achieving high classification accuracy and better overlap in pattern localization, indicating its potential effectiveness in clinical settings.
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Endometrial-factor induced infertility remains one of the most significant pathology among all fertility disorders. Stem cell-based therapy is considered to be the next-generation approach. However, there are still issues about successfully retrieving human endometrium-derived mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (hEnMSCs).

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The optimal timing for aortic valve replacement (AVR) in aortic stenosis (AS) is still controversial and may be guided by markers of adverse left ventricular (LV) remodeling. We aim to assess electrocardiographic (ECG) strain in relation to LV remodeling and myocardial fibrosis. 83 severe AS patients underwent surgical AVR, with preoperative 12-lead ECG, cardiovascular magnetic resonance with T1 mapping and echocardiography with global longitudinal strain analysis.

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  • The study aimed to identify biological markers for predicting the progression of pulmonary sarcoidosis at the time of diagnosis, focusing on immune inflammation markers.
  • Researchers analyzed blood, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and lung biopsy samples from newly diagnosed patients over a 2-year follow-up period.
  • They identified five significant markers associated with worsening sarcoidosis, including specific types of T lymphocytes and lung CT patterns, suggesting they could be used as predictors for disease progression.
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Immunoglobulin G4-related disease (IgG4-RD) is a systemic condition which could present as local infiltration of skull base structures. We report a case of IgG4-RD with infiltration of the temporal bone and surrounding structures in a patient with systemic vasculitis on systemic steroids. A 31-year-old woman presented with right-sided facial weakness, headache, and right ear hearing loss.

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Acute interstitial nephritis (AIN) has been recently recognized as one of the infrequent kidney involvement phenotypes among adult patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Although SARS-CoV-2 associated intrinsic kidney disease has been scarcely reported in children, only one case of AIN temporally associated with the infection has been described in the pediatric population so far. We presented a case of a 12-year old boy who presented with fatigue, anorexia, and polydipsia following an RT-PCR that confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection seven weeks prior to admission.

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Myocardial fibrosis in aortic stenosis is associated with worse survival following aortic valve replacement. We assessed myocardial fibrosis in severe AS patients, integrating echocardiographic, cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) and histological data. A total of 83 severe AS patients (age 66.

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Background: Acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction is a blockage of the lacrimal outflow system usually caused by local nonspecific inflammation of the lacrimal sac and the nasolacrimal duct. However, cases exist where the primary nasolacrimal system obstruction is caused by malignancies. Our aim was to investigate lacrimal sac pathologies in patients with acquired nasolacrimal duct obstruction and compare their clinical manifestations.

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Background: The mechanisms driving the transition from inflammation to fibrosis in sarcoidosis patients are poorly understood; prognostic features are lacking. Immune cell profiling may provide insights into pathogenesis and prognostic factors of the disease. This study aimed to establish associations in simultaneous of lymphocyte subset profiles in the blood, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), and lung biopsy tissue in the patients with newly diagnosed sarcoidosis.

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Immunohistochemistry (IHC) for ER, PR, HER2, and Ki67 is used to predict outcome and therapy response in breast cancer patients. The current IHC assessment, visual or digital, is based mostly on global biomarker expression levels in the tissue sample. In our study, we explored the prognostic value of digital image analysis of conventional breast cancer IHC biomarkers supplemented with their intratumoral heterogeneity and tissue immune response indicators.

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Approximately 10% of all breast cancer (BC) cases are familial and caused by inheritance of mutant , or some other genes from the same DNA reparation pathway. Genetic counseling in families with cancer history is a powerful means for early cancer detection and active risk reduction through preventive interventions. This is the first report of the rare inherited frameshift-deletion mutation c.

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Aim: The rate of deployment of digital pathology (DP) systems for primary diagnosis in the UK is accelerating. The flexibility and resilience of digital versus standard glass slides could be of great benefit in the NHS breast screening programme (NHSBSP). This study aims to document the safety and benefits of DP for preoperative tissue diagnosis of screen-detected breast lesions.

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Treatment of a prosthetic vascular graft infection (PVGI) remains a challenging problem in vascular surgery. The aim of this study was to design a novel rat model for treatment of peripheral vascular prosthesis infection caused by and to determine the efficacy of different antiseptic solutions in suppressing or eradicating infection from the wound and the graft material itself. A piece of Dacron vascular prosthesis was surgically implanted at the dorsum of 48 Wistar rats and the wounds were infected with 5 McFarland standard inoculum of .

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Background And Aims: Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is an essential component of biomarker research in cancer. Automated biomarker quantification is hampered by the failure of computational algorithms to discriminate 'negative' tumour cells from 'negative' stromal cells. We sought to develop an algorithm for segmentation of tumour epithelium in colorectal cancer (CRC), irrespective of the biomarker expression in the cells.

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  • Gene expression studies have highlighted the need for effective tissue sampling criteria based on immunohistochemistry (IHC) markers, specifically the Ki67 labeling index, for subclassifying breast cancer and advising chemotherapy.
  • The study utilized digital image analysis on 297 breast cancer samples to assess Ki67 expression and evaluated intratumoral heterogeneity, categorizing tumors accordingly.
  • Findings revealed that the number of tissue cores required for accurate biomarker assessment varies; homogeneous tumors needed 5-6 cores while heterogeneous ones needed 11-12 cores to maintain a 10% error margin.
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Proliferative activity, assessed by Ki67 immunohistochemistry (IHC), is an established prognostic and predictive biomarker of breast cancer (BC). However, it remains under-utilized due to lack of standardized robust measurement methodologies and significant intratumor heterogeneity of expression. A recently proposed methodology for IHC biomarker assessment in whole slide images (WSI), based on systematic subsampling of tissue information extracted by digital image analysis (DIA) into hexagonal tiling arrays, enables computation of a comprehensive set of Ki67 indicators, including intratumor variability.

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  • Digital Image Analysis (DIA) improves the accuracy and reproducibility of measuring cell populations in breast cancer tissues by analyzing markers like the Ki67 labeling index, which is essential for prognosis and prediction.
  • A study employed DIA on 302 Ki67-stained breast cancer specimens using whole-slide images and a tumor classifier algorithm to gather data on tumor characteristics, comparing them to traditional methods.
  • The analysis discovered four key factors related to tumor characteristics and enabled the identification of tumor heterogeneity, leading to better visualization of Ki67 activity and the potential improvement of digital immunohistochemistry techniques.
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Background: Digital image analysis (DIA) enables better reproducibility of immunohistochemistry (IHC) studies. Nevertheless, accuracy of the DIA methods needs to be ensured, demanding production of reference data sets. We have reported on methodology to calibrate DIA for Ki67 IHC in breast cancer tissue based on reference data obtained by stereology grid count.

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Background: Digital immunohistochemistry (IHC) is one of the most promising applications brought by new generation image analysis (IA). While conventional IHC staining quality is monitored by semi-quantitative visual evaluation of tissue controls, IA may require more sensitive measurement. We designed an automated system to digitally monitor IHC multi-tissue controls, based on SQL-level integration of laboratory information system with image and statistical analysis tools.

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Background: Cardiac fibrosis disrupts the normal myocardial structure and has a direct impact on heart function and survival. Despite already available digital methods, the pathologist's visual score is still widely considered as ground truth and used as a primary method in histomorphometric evaluations. The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of digital image analysis tools and the pathologist's visual scoring for evaluating fibrosis in human myocardial biopsies, based on reference data obtained by point counting performed on the same images.

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Introduction: Immunohistochemical Ki67 labelling index (Ki67 LI) reflects proliferative activity and is a potential prognostic/predictive marker of breast cancer. However, its clinical utility is hindered by the lack of standardized measurement methodologies. Besides tissue heterogeneity aspects, the key element of methodology remains accurate estimation of Ki67-stained/counterstained tumour cell profiles.

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