Identification of CT radiomic features robust to acquisition and segmentation variations for improved prediction of radiotherapy-treated lung cancer patient recurrence.

The primary objective of the present study was to identify a subset of radiomic features extracted from primary tumor imaged by computed tomography of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer patients, which remain unaffected by variations in segmentation quality and in computed tomography image acquisition protocol. The robustness of these features to segmentation variations was assessed by analyzing the correlation of feature values extracted from lesion volumes delineated by two annotators. The robustness to variations in acquisition protocol was evaluated by examining the correlation of features extracted from high-dose and low-dose computed tomography scans, both of which were acquired for each patient as part of the stereotactic body radiotherapy planning process.

Development and prospective validation of a spatial dose pattern based model predicting acute pulmonary toxicity in patients treated with volumetric arc-therapy for locally advanced lung cancer.

Introduction: (Chemo)-radiotherapy is the standard treatment for patients with locally advanced lung cancer (LALC) not accessible to surgery. Despite strict application of dose constraints, acute toxicities such as acute pulmonary toxicity (APT) remain frequent, and may impact treatment's compliance and patients' quality of life. Previously, on a population treated with intensity-modulated photon therapy or passive scattering proton therapy, spatial dose patterns associated with APT were identified in the lower lungs, especially in the posterior right lung.

Radiation Therapy Planning of Thoracic Tumors: A Review of Challenges Associated With Lung Toxicities and Potential Perspectives of Gallium-68 Lung PET/CT Imaging.

Despite the introduction of new radiotherapy techniques, such as intensity modulated radiation therapy or stereotactic body radiation therapy, radiation induced lung injury remains a significant treatment related adverse event of thoracic radiation therapy. Functional lung avoidance radiation therapy is an emerging concept in the treatment of lung disease to better preserve lung function and to reduce pulmonary toxicity. While conventional ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) lung scintigraphy is limited by a relatively low spatial and temporal resolution, the recent advent of Gallium V/Q lung PET/CT imaging offers a potential to increase the accuracy of lung functional mapping and to better tailor lung radiation therapy plans to the individual's lung function.

Aesthetic result after breast-conserving therapy is associated with quality of life several years after treatment. Swedish women evaluated with BCCT.core and BREAST-Q™.

Purpose: A gold standard for evaluation of aesthetic outcome after breast-conserving therapy (BCT) is still lacking. The BCCT.core software has been developed to assess aesthetic result in a standardised way.

Efficacy versus effectiveness of clinical genetic testing criteria for BRCA1 and BRCA2 hereditary mutations in incident breast cancer.

Increasing evidence supports the benefit of identifying BRCA1 and BRCA2 germline mutations in early breast cancer. Selection of patients for genetic testing is based on defined criteria taking individual and family history related factors into account. It is important to make a distinction between efficacy and effectiveness of BRCA testing criteria.

Determinants for patient satisfaction regarding aesthetic outcome and skin sensitivity after breast-conserving surgery.

Background: With the development of new surgical techniques in breast cancer, such as oncoplastic breast surgery, increased knowledge of risk factors for poor satisfaction with conventional breast-conserving surgery (BCS) is needed in order to determine which patients to offer these techniques to. The aim of this study was to investigate patient satisfaction regarding aesthetic result and skin sensitivity in relation to patient, tumour, and treatment factors, in a consecutive sample of patients undergoing conventional BCS.

Methods: Women eligible for BCS were recruited between February 1, 2008 and January 31, 2012 in a prospective setup.

Patients Undergoing Breast-Conserving Surgery Can Benefit from the Opportunity to Participate in Choosing Their Surgical Technique.

Background: Shared decision-making is increasingly advocated in many countries. The aims of this study were to investigate whether patients receiving breast-conserving surgery at Skåne University Hospital Malmö, Sweden, perceived an offered possibility to join in the decision-making process regarding the surgical method; to identify potential determinants for not having perceived such an offer; and to study how this perception of being offered an opportunity to take part in the decision-making process affected satisfaction with the aesthetic outcome.

Methods: Women offered breast-conserving surgery were consecutively recruited over a period of 4 years.

GM6001 Increases Anastomotic Leakage following Colonic Obstruction Possibly by Impeding Epithelialization.

Background: Emergency operations performed on an obstructed colon are accompanied by an increased risk of anastomotic insufficiency. Tissue-destructive matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activity is elevated in the obstructed colon and contributes to a loss of suture-holding submucosal collagen, which may be mediated by tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α. Our aim was to study the effect of the non-selective MMP and TNF-α converting enzyme (TACE) inhibitor GM6001 (30 mg/kg) on anastomosis repair in obstructed left colon.

Rapid morphological changes and loss of collagen following experimental acute colonic obstruction.

Purpose: Anastomosis of an acutely obstructed colon is associated with an increased risk of dehiscence. In experimental models, acute obstruction decreases collagen in the colonic wall, but the time course and propagation along the colon of the biochemical changes are unknown. Furthermore, there is a paucity of information on the correlation between these biochemical changes and histological features.

Sound retrieval and ranking using sparse auditory representations.

To create systems that understand the sounds that humans are exposed to in everyday life, we need to represent sounds with features that can discriminate among many different sound classes. Here, we use a sound-ranking framework to quantitatively evaluate such representations in a large-scale task. We have adapted a machine-vision method, the passive-aggressive model for image retrieval (PAMIR), which efficiently learns a linear mapping from a very large sparse feature space to a large query-term space.

Doxycycline-coated sutures improve mechanical strength of intestinal anastomoses.

Background And Aims: After resection and repair of the intestines, tissue degradation leads to weakening of the repair site and risk of postoperative leakage. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are thought to be responsible for collagenolysis in the direct vicinity of surgical sutures in many tissues. Several experimental studies show that MMP inhibitors administered systemically alleviate postoperative weakening of intestinal anastomoses.

Attractor dynamics in a modular network model of neocortex.

Starting from the hypothesis that the mammalian neocortex to a first approximation functions as an associative memory of the attractor network type, we formulate a quantitative computational model of neocortical layers 2/3. The model employs biophysically detailed multi-compartmental model neurons with conductance based synapses and includes pyramidal cells and two types of inhibitory interneurons, i.e.

A network that uses few active neurones to code visual input predicts the diverse shapes of cortical receptive fields.

Computational models of primary visual cortex have demonstrated that principles of efficient coding and neuronal sparseness can explain the emergence of neurones with localised oriented receptive fields. Yet, existing models have failed to predict the diverse shapes of receptive fields that occur in nature. The existing models used a particular "soft" form of sparseness that limits average neuronal activity.