Contrast-enhanced CT quantification of the hepatic fractional extracellular space: correlation with diffuse liver disease severity.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine whether contrast-enhanced CT quantification of the hepatic fractional extracellular space (ECS) correlates with the severity of diffuse liver disease.

Materials And Methods: The cases of 70 patients without (46 men, 24 women; mean age, 59.1 years) and 36 patients with (23 men, 13 women; mean age, 63.

18F-5-fluorouracil dynamic positron emission tomography/computed tomography shows decreased tracer activity after bevacizumab in colorectal metastases.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of fluorine-18 (F)-5-fluorouracil (F-5-FU) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) to show differences in 5-FU activity in metastatic colorectal cancer before and after treatment with bevacizumab.

Methods: This was a pilot study of five patients with newly diagnosed and untreated metastatic colorectal adenocarcinoma. The presence of cancer was confirmed by histopathological analysis before enrollment.

High hamstring tendinopathy: MRI and ultrasound imaging and therapeutic efficacy of percutaneous corticosteroid injection.

Objective: The goals of this study were to review the MRI and sonographic findings in patients diagnosed clinically with high hamstring tendinopathy and to evaluate the efficacy of ultrasound-guided corticosteroid injections in providing symptomatic relief.

Conclusion: MRI is more sensitive than ultrasound in detecting peritendinous edema and tendinopathy at the proximal hamstring origin. Fifty percent of patients had symptomatic improvement lasting longer than 1 month after percutaneous corticosteroid injection, and 24% of patients had symptom relief for more than 6 months.

Acute and chronic morphine alters formalin pain in neonatal rats.

The present study tested the hypothesis that morphine exposure during the human developmental equivalent of the third trimester would alter inflammatory pain. This study examined whether acute or continuous opioid exposure in the neonatal rat alters formalin-induced nociception after 4 days of abstinence. Rats were exposed to a single acute administration of morphine on postnatal day 7 or 72 h of opioid infusion from postnatal days 5-7 via osmotic pump.

Mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia upon acute opioid withdrawal in the neonatal rat.

Upon withdrawal from opioids many patients experience a heightened sensitivity to stimuli and an exaggerated pain response. We present evidence that neonatal rats exhibit allodynia and hyperalgesia on acute opiate withdrawal. Postnatal 7 and 21 day rats were used to approximately model a full term human infant and a human child, respectively.