Computing thickness of irregularly-shaped thin walls using a locally semi-implicit scheme with extrapolation to solve the Laplace equation: Application to the right ventricle.

Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR) Imaging is currently considered the gold standard imaging modality in cardiology. However, it is accompanied by a tradeoff between spatial resolution and acquisition time. Providing accurate measures of thin walls relative to the image resolution may prove challenging.

Methylprednisolone Pulses in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients Without Respiratory Failure: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Corticosteroids are the cornerstone of the treatment of patients with COVID-19 admitted to hospital. However, whether corticosteroids can prevent respiratory worsening in hospitalized COVID-19 patients without oxygen requirements is currently unknown.

Aims: To assess the efficacy of methylprednisolone pulses (MPP) in hospitalized COVID-19 patients with increased levels of inflammatory markers not requiring oxygen at baseline.

The prognostic value of blood pressure control delay in newly diagnosed hypertensive patients.

Objective: Various studies have suggested that a delay in the time between diagnosing hypertension and its correct control (D-C, diagnostic-control time) is linked to a worse prognosis. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between D-C time and all-cause mortality, or the incidence of cardiovascular events, in patients more than 60 years newly diagnosed with hypertension.

Methods: This is a longitudinal, retrospective, population study employing data gathered from the electronic medical records of patients recently diagnosed with hypertension in 45 primary healthcare centres located in Barcelona (Catalonia).

Use of high resolution dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry-region free analysis (DXA-RFA) to detect local periprosthetic bone remodeling events.

Dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is the gold standard method for measuring periprosthetic bone remodeling, but relies on a region of interest (ROI) analysis approach. While this addresses issues of anatomic variability, it is insensitive to bone remodeling events at the sub-ROI level. We have validated a high-spatial resolution tool, termed DXA-region free analysis (DXA-RFA) that uses advanced image processing approaches to allow quantitation of bone mineral density (BMD) at the individual pixel (data-point) level.

High-spatial-resolution bone densitometry with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometric region-free analysis.

Purpose: To outline the conceptual development of dual-energy absorptiometric (DXA) region-free analysis, quantify its precision, and evaluate its application to quantify the change in longitudinal femoral periprosthetic bone mineral density (BMD) in patients during the 12 months after total hip arthroplasty.

Materials And Methods: All subjects had undergone total hip arthroplasty for idiopathic arthritis, and the scans were collected as part of previous ethically approved studies (1998-2005) for which informed consent was provided. Contemporary image processing approaches were used to develop a region of interest-free DXA analysis method with increased spatial resolution for assessment of proximal femoral BMD.

Soft thresholding for medical image segmentation.

A new soft thresholding method is presented. The method is based on relating each pixel in the image to the different regions via a membership function, rather than through hard decisions. The membership function of each of the regions is derived from the histogram of the image.

A Log-Euclidean polyaffine registration for articulated structures in medical images.

In this paper we generalize the Log-Euclidean polyaffine registration framework of Arsigny et al. to deal with articulated structures. This framework has very useful properties as it guarantees the invertibility of smooth geometric transformations.

Group-Slicer: a collaborative extension of 3D-Slicer.

In this paper, we describe a first step towards a collaborative extension of the well-known 3D-Slicer; this platform is nowadays used as a standalone tool for both surgical planning and medical intervention. We show how this tool can be easily modified to make it collaborative so that it may constitute an integrated environment for expertise exchange as well as a useful tool for academic purposes.

A computational TW3 classifier for skeletal maturity assessment. A Computing with Words approach.

This paper proposes a fuzzy methodology to translate the natural language descriptions of the TW3 method for bone age assessment into an automatic classifier. The classifier is built upon a modified version of a fuzzy ID3 decision tree. No large data records are needed to train the classifier, i.