Optimizing modality selection for image-guided procedures: an analysis of the challenges to ultrasound guidance.

Introduction: Selection of the most appropriate modality for image guidance is essential for procedural success. We identified specific factors contributing to failure of ultrasound-guided procedures that were subsequently performed using CT guidance.

Materials And Methods: This single-center, retrospective study included 164 patients who underwent a CT-guided biopsy, aspiration/drainage, or ablation after initially having the same procedure attempted unsuccessfully with ultrasound guidance.

Assessment of chronic hepatitis and fibrosis: comparison of MR elastography and diffusion-weighted imaging.

Objective: The purpose of our study was to compare the utility of MR elastography (MRE) and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in characterizing fibrosis and chronic hepatitis in patients with chronic liver diseases.

Subjects And Methods: Seventy-six patients with chronic liver disease underwent abdominal MRI, MRE, and DWI. Severities of liver fibrosis and chronic hepatitis were graded by histopathologic analysis according to standard disease-specific classifications.

Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging of pancreatic adenocarcinomas: association with histopathology and tumor grade.

Purpose: To evaluate the utility of diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI) in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma with various grades of differentiation.

Materials And Methods: Following Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, 21 consecutive patients with surgical pathology-proven pancreatic adenocarcinomas were retrospectively evaluated. Histopathologic characteristics and grades of differentiation of adenocarcinomas were analyzed.

Magnesium excretion in C. elegans requires the activity of the GTL-2 TRPM channel.

Systemic magnesium homeostasis in mammals is primarily governed by the activities of the TRPM6 and TRPM7 cation channels, which mediate both uptake by the intestinal epithelial cells and reabsorption by the distal convoluted tubule cells in the kidney. In the nematode, C. elegans, intestinal magnesium uptake is dependent on the activities of the TRPM channel proteins, GON-2 and GTL-1.

In vivo construction of recombinant molecules within the Caenorhabditis elegans germ line using short regions of terminal homology.

Homologous recombination provides a means for the in vivo construction of recombinant DNA molecules that may be problematic to assemble in vitro. We have investigated the efficiency of recombination within the Caenorhabditis elegans germ line as a function of the length of homology between recombining molecules. Our findings indicate that recombination can occur between molecules that share only 10 bp of terminal homology, and that 25 bp is sufficient to mediate relatively high levels of recombination.