Publications by authors named "Long Jiang Zhang"
Article Synopsis
- Heart failure (HF) is linked to brain abnormalities and cognitive impairments, with this study analyzing structural and functional brain changes in 49 chronic HF patients compared to 49 healthy controls.
- Structural MRI revealed reduced gray matter volume (GMV), impaired white matter integrity, and decreased functional connectivity in HF patients, with significant correlations between GMV and cognitive performance.
- The findings suggest that GMV could be a useful neuroimaging biomarker for cognitive issues and a potential target for future neuroprotective therapies in chronic HF patients.
Article Synopsis
- The current radiation protection standards for cancer risk, primarily based on the Life Span Study (LSS), lack sufficient supporting evidence for low-dose ionizing radiation (LDIR) effects.
- There is a growing need for substantial evidence and potential thresholds for cancer risk, especially with increased medical radiation use, prompting a review of epidemiological studies.
- Recent advances in understanding the biology of LDIR-induced cancer suggest that factors like DNA damage, chromosome changes, and stem cell behavior may challenge existing risk models, indicating new areas for future research.
Article Synopsis
- A multicenter randomized controlled trial in China investigated the impact of adding coronary CT-derived fractional flow reserve (CT-FFR) to routine coronary CT angiography (CCTA) on the need for invasive coronary angiography (ICA) and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) in patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD).
- The study involved 5,297 participants, showing that the CCTA plus CT-FFR group had a lower ICA rate (10.0%) compared to the CCTA alone group (12.4%) over a 90-day follow-up.
- While MACE rates were similar between groups, the CCTA plus CT-FFR approach resulted in fewer cardiac events after one year (0.5%
Article Synopsis
- - The trial explores whether using coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is more effective than traditional cardiovascular risk scoring for managing lipid levels to prevent coronary artery disease (CAD) in asymptomatic individuals.
- - About 3,400 middle-aged participants will be randomly assigned to two groups: one receiving usual care based on traditional risk scores and the other guided by CCTA results, with both requiring lifestyle changes and monitoring of blood pressure and glucose.
- - The primary focus is on the percentage of participants taking lipid-lowering medication regularly after 6 and 12 months, while secondary outcomes include LDL cholesterol targets and barriers to treatment adherence.
Background: Exertional heatstroke (EHS) is increasingly common in young trained soldiers. However, prognostic markers in EHS patients remain unclear. The objective of this study was to evaluate cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) feature tracking derived left ventricle (LV) strain as a biomarker for return to training (RTT) in trained soldiers with EHS.
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- - coronary artery disease is a major global cause of death, and its impact is linked to both the narrowing of coronary arteries and the presence of atherosclerotic plaque components
- - coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) allows non-invasive monitoring of plaque, but accurately assessing plaque features remains a challenge for doctors
- - artificial intelligence (AI) has made significant advancements in cardiovascular imaging, enhancing CCTA by improving efficiency, providing objective assessments, and aiding treatment decisions, while the review also addresses ongoing issues and future possibilities for AI in clinical practice
Article Synopsis
- Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a serious condition related to liver disease that involves neuroinflammation, and treatments with rifaximin (RIF) and lactulose (LAC) have shown effectiveness.
- A study using chronic HE rat models tested the effects of RIF and/or LAC on neuroinflammation through imaging and behavioral assessments, while analyzing physiological changes post-treatment.
- Results indicated that RIF and LAC improved behavior similar to healthy control rats, but did not reverse liver damage; treatment reduced certain inflammatory markers and showed significant differences in brain neuroinflammation imaging among various treatment groups.
APOE ε4 is risk for cognitive decline even in normal aging, but its effect on the whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) among time in young adults remain elusive. This study aimed to validate the time-by-APOE ε4 interaction on brain FC of this specific population. Longitudinal changes in neuropsychological assessments and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging in 26 ε4 carriers and 26 matched non-ε4 carriers were measured for about 3 years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: This multicenter, double-blinded, randomized controlled trial (RCT) aims to assess the impact of an artificial intelligence (AI)-based model on the efficacy of intracranial aneurysm detection in CT angiography (CTA) and its influence on patients' short-term and long-term outcomes.
Methods: Study design: Prospective, multicenter, double-blinded RCT.
Settings: The model was designed for the automatic detection of intracranial aneurysms from original CTA images.
Coronary CTA-based vascular radiomics predicts atherosclerosis development proximal to LAD myocardial bridging.
Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging
September 2024
Aims: Cardiac cycle morphological changes can accelerate plaque growth proximal to myocardial bridging (MB) in the left anterior descending artery (LAD). To assess coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA)-based vascular radiomics for predicting proximal plaque development in LAD MB.
Methods And Results: Patients with repeated CCTA scans showing LAD MB without proximal plaque in index CCTA were included from Jinling Hospital as a development set.
A mounting body of evidences suggests that patients with chronic heart failure (HF) frequently experience cognitive impairments, but the neuroanatomical mechanism underlying these impairments remains elusive. In this retrospective study, 49 chronic HF patients and 49 healthy controls (HCs) underwent brain structural MRI scans and cognitive assessments. Cortical morphology index (cortical thickness, complexity, sulcal depth and gyrification) were evaluated.
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- Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is effective in monitoring cardiac changes in patients with light-chain cardiac amyloidosis (AL-CA) during chemotherapy, providing detailed information on heart structure and function.
- A study involving 111 AL-CA patients demonstrated significant improvements in CMR measurements post-chemotherapy, particularly in patients with a better response to treatment.
- Results suggest that chemotherapy can reduce cardiac amyloid deposits, with notable recovery in right ventricular function, indicating that CMR is a valuable tool for tracking treatment effectiveness in these patients.
Article Synopsis
- The study aimed to develop and validate an artificial intelligence (AI) model for detecting intracranial aneurysms using CT angiography (CTA) images from a large dataset of patients across multiple hospitals in China.
- The performance of the AI model was compared to that of certified clinicians in several stages, including external validation with established cases and a multi-reader study that assessed how the AI tool affected diagnostic accuracy.
- Results showed that the AI model had higher diagnostic sensitivity than individual clinicians and significantly improved their overall performance when incorporated into their review process.
Coronary chronic total occlusion (CTO) often occurs in patients with obstructive coronary artery disease, which remains one of the greatest challenges for interventional cardiologists. Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) with its emerging post-processing techniques can provide a detailed assessment of CTO lesions before percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), playing an important role in the clinical management of CTO PCI, from early diagnosis, pre-procedural outcome prediction, the crossing algorithm planning, intraprocedural guidance, and finally post-procedural assessment and follow-up. In addition, the feasibility of CT perfusion (CTP) in patients with CTO has been validated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To investigate intraindividual cardiac structural and functional changes before and after COVID-19 infection in a previously healthy population with a 3T cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR).
Materials And Methods: A total of 39 unhospitalized patients with COVID-19 were recruited. They participated in our previous study as non-COVID-19 healthy volunteers undergoing baseline CMR examination and were recruited to perform a repeated CMR examination after confirmed COVID-19 infection in December 2022.
Background: CT-derived fractional flow reserve (CT-FFR) has been widely applied in coronary hemodynamic assessment. However, the feasieablity and standardization measurement in intracranial artery stenosis (ICAS) remains to be defined.
Purpose: To demonstrate the feasibility of CT-FFR in ICAS functional assessment and explore the optimal CT-FFR measurement position with invasive FFR as reference standard.
Objectives: To evaluate the performance of coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) derived characteristics including CT derived fractional flow reserve (CT-FFR) with FFR as a reference standard in identifying the lesion-specific ischemia by machine learning (ML) algorithms.
Methods: The retrospective analysis enrolled 596 vessels in 462 patients (mean age, 61 years ± 11 [SD]; 71.4 % men) with suspected coronary artery disease who underwent CCTA and invasive FFR.
Article Synopsis
- The study aimed to create and validate a radiomics signature (RS) using coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) to predict rapid plaque progression (RPP), which poses a higher risk for acute coronary syndromes.
- A total of 214 patients were assessed through CCTA, measuring both traditional plaque characteristics and radiomics features, with the RS showing better predictive performance for RPP than conventional parameters during testing and validation.
- The findings indicate that the CCTA-based RS is a reliable tool for identifying plaques at risk of rapid progression, highlighting its potential for use in low-risk patients.
Objectives: To evaluate the prognostic value of radiomics features based on late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) images in patients with cardiac amyloidosis (CA).
Methods: This retrospective study included 120 CA patients undergoing CMR at three institutions. Radiomics features were extracted from global and three different segments (base, mid-ventricular, and apex) of left ventricular (LV) on short-axis LGE images.
Background: To investigate the distribution and burden of monosodium urate (MSU) deposition in hyperuricemia and gout patients with dual-energy computed tomography (DECT).
Methods: A total of 1,936 consecutive patients from January 1, 2009, to September 15, 2017, underwent DECT examinations in Jinling Hospital. Of these, 1,294 patients were excluded due to other clinical diagnoses (n=1,041), inappropriate locations (n=82), poor-quality images (n=105), training cases (n=30) and duplicated data (n=36).
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of integrated evaluation of resting static computed tomography perfusion (CTP) and coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA)-derived fractional flow reserve (FFR CT ) on therapeutic decision-making and predicting major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) in patients with suspected coronary artery disease.
Materials And Methods: In this post hoc analysis of a prospective trial of CCTA in patients assigned to either CCTA or CCTA plus FFR CT arms, 500 patients in the CCTA plus FFR CT arm were analyzed. Both resting static CTP and FFR CT were evaluated by using the conventional CCTA.
Objectives: To explore the clinical potential of multiparametric cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) in evaluating myocardial inflammation in patients with exertional heat illness (EHI).
Methods: This prospective study enrolled 28 males with EHI (18 patients with exertional heat exhaustion (EHE) and 10 with exertional heat stroke (EHS)) and 18 age-matched male healthy controls (HC). All subjects underwent multiparametric CMR, and 9 patients had follow-up CMR measurements 3 months after recovery from EHI.
Background: Intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) MRI has not been widely used and its role in evaluating exertional heat illness (EHI)-related myocardial involvement remains unknown.
Purpose: To investigate the feasibility of strain curve-derived trigger delay (TD) IVIM-MRI and its role in assessing myocardial diffusion and microvascular perfusion of EHI patients.
Study Type: Prospective.
Background A noninvasive coronary CT angiography (CCTA)-based radiomics technique may facilitate the identification of vulnerable plaques and patients at risk for future adverse events. Purpose To assess whether a CCTA-based radiomic signature (RS) of vulnerable plaques defined with intravascular US was associated with increased risk for future major adverse cardiac events (MACE). Materials and Methods In a retrospective study, an RS of vulnerable plaques was developed and validated using intravascular US as the reference standard.
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