Publications by authors named "Paolo Niccolo Franco"

Article Synopsis
  • - Both Magnetic Resonance Enterography (MRE) and Computed Tomography Enterography (CTE) are important imaging techniques used for diagnosing and treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with CTE being favored in urgent situations like suspected complications.
  • - CTE provides rapid and precise imaging but involves exposure to ionizing radiation, while MRE avoids radiation and excels in evaluating the small intestine and perianal disease, making it ideal for patients requiring frequent monitoring or those who are pregnant.
  • - The review highlights the strengths and weaknesses of both imaging methods, aiming to inform about their technical aspects, benefits, limitations, and the specific findings they can reveal regarding IBD.
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  • The study evaluates the effectiveness of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) metrics in predicting responses to neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer.
  • A retrospective analysis of 94 patients was conducted using MRI data to assess pre- and post-treatment ADC values, which were correlated with the tumor regression grade (TRG) after surgery.
  • Results indicated that while pre-ADC values did not correlate with TRG, post-ADC and changes in ADC values were significantly associated with patient responses and overall survival rates, highlighting their potential as predictive markers in treatment outcomes.
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Chronic liver disease (CLD) is a global and worldwide clinical challenge, considering that different underlying liver entities can lead to hepatic dysfunction. In the past, blood tests and clinical evaluation were the main noninvasive tools used to detect, diagnose and follow-up patients with CLD; in case of clinical suspicion of CLD or unclear diagnosis, liver biopsy has been considered as the reference standard to rule out different chronic liver conditions. Nowadays, noninvasive tests have gained a central role in the clinical pathway.

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  • - The study assessed the CARE-Radiology checklist's reliability and usability for evaluating radiological case reports, aiming to encourage its wider use and improvement.
  • - Ten case reports from 2020 were reviewed by 26 experts from 10 different countries, measuring the checklist's effectiveness using statistical methods like Fleiss' Kappa and Cronbach's alpha.
  • - Results showed moderate reliability, with a mean compliance rate of 61.8% for checklist items, and while most evaluators found it easy to use, certain areas need feedback for future enhancements.
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  • This study evaluated the effectiveness of the FLIS (Functional Liver Imaging Score) in predicting post-hepatectomy liver failure (PHLF) and death in patients who had liver surgery for cancer.
  • It involved 150 patients, with a high reliability in assessment results between radiologists, indicating solid agreement in the evaluation processes used.
  • The findings suggest that FLIS, along with factors like blood transfusions and major resections, may help identify patients at risk for adverse outcomes after surgery.
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  • The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of an AI algorithm in detecting acute appendicular fractures in children using conventional X-ray images.
  • It included 600 anonymized X-ray images of patients under 17, finding that the AI demonstrated high sensitivity (91.3%) and accuracy (84%) in identifying fractures.
  • The results suggest that the AI tool is effective for diagnosing these types of fractures in pediatric patients, indicating potential for clinical use.
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  • The study compared low-dose, low-contrast media CT exams using model-based iterative reconstruction (MBIR) vs. hybrid iterative reconstruction (HIR) with a focus on image quality and radiation dose.
  • Patients (401 total) underwent cardiovascular CT scans, with results showing that the MBIR group had significantly better vessel contrast enhancement, lower noise levels, and improved signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios.
  • Overall, the MBIR method not only reduced radiation exposure but also enhanced both objective and subjective image quality when compared to HIR.
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Article Synopsis
  • * Cross-sectional imaging, especially contrast-enhanced CT scans, helps doctors find issues early and accurately.
  • * MRI is also useful but usually for later problems or specific areas, and doctors need to communicate well to create the best treatment plans for patients.
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  • Hepatic diffuse conditions and focal liver lesions are common challenges in radiology, with advances in CT and MRI making them essential for non-invasive liver diagnosis.
  • Radiomics enhances the evaluation and management of liver diseases by extracting detailed data from radiological images, aiding in patient characterization and prognosis.
  • This review highlights key studies in liver radiomics, discussing their benefits, limitations, and implications for clinical practice.
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  • A study was conducted to evaluate an AI system's ability to differentiate between COVID-19 pneumonia and typical bacterial pneumonia using chest X-ray (CXR) images from patients in an emergency department.
  • The AI demonstrated high diagnostic accuracy with sensitivity and specificity rates comparable to those of experienced radiologists, achieving nearly perfect interrater reliability scores.
  • Results indicated that both the AI and the radiologists were effective in diagnosing COVID-19 pneumonia and typical bacterial pneumonia, suggesting that AI could enhance the speed and accuracy of pneumonia detection in clinical settings.
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The liver is one of the organs most commonly involved in metastatic disease, especially due to its unique vascularization. It's well known that liver metastases represent the most common hepatic malignant tumors. From a practical point of view, it's of utmost importance to evaluate the presence of liver metastases when staging oncologic patients, to select the best treatment possible, and finally to predict the overall prognosis.

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In female patients, acute pelvic pain can be caused by gynaecological, gastrointestinal, and urinary tract pathologies. Due to the variety of diagnostic possibilities, the correct assessment of these patients may be challenging. The most frequent gynaecological causes of acute pelvic pain in non-pregnant women are pelvic inflammatory disease, ruptured ovarian cysts, ovarian torsion, and degeneration or torsion of uterine leiomyomas.

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In diagnostic imaging, distinguishing chromophobe renal cell carcinomas (chRCCs) from renal oncocytomas (ROs) is challenging, since they both present similar radiological characteristics. Radiomics has the potential to help in the differentiation between chRCCs and ROs by extracting quantitative imaging. This is a preliminary study of the role of radiomic features in the differentiation of chRCCs and ROs using machine learning models.

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Objectives: The Prostate Imaging for Recurrence Reporting (PI-RR) system has been recently proposed to promote standardisation in the MR assessment of prostate cancer (PCa) local recurrence after radical prostatectomy (RP) and radiation therapy (RT). This study aims to evaluate PI-RR's diagnostic accuracy, assess the inter-observer reliability among readers with variable experience, and correlate imaging results with anatomopathological and laboratory parameters.

Methods: Patients who underwent a pelvic MRI for suspicion of PCa local recurrence after RP or RT were retrospectively enrolled (October 2017-February 2020).

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During the waves of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, emergency departments were overflowing with patients suffering with suspected medical or surgical issues. In these settings, healthcare staff should be able to deal with different medical and surgical scenarios while protecting themselves against the risk of contamination. Various strategies were used to overcome the most critical issues and guarantee quick and efficient diagnostic and therapeutic charts.

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The advance in technology allows for the development of different CT scanners in the field of dual-energy computed tomography (DECT). In particular, a recently developed detector-based technology can collect data from different energy levels, thanks to its layers. The use of this system is suited for material decomposition with perfect spatial and temporal registration.

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PI-RADS 3 prostate lesions clinical management is still debated, with high variability among different centers. Identifying clinically significant tumors among PI-RADS 3 is crucial. Radiomics applied to multiparametric MR (mpMR) seems promising.

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Purpose: To report ischemic and haemorrhagic abdominal complications in a series of COVID-19 patients. To correlate these complications with lung involvement, laboratory tests, comorbidities, and anticoagulant treatment.

Methods: We retrospectively included 30 COVID-19 patients who undergone abdomen CECT for abdominal pain, between March 16 and May 19, 2020.

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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an effective technique for the diagnosis and preoperative staging of deep infiltrative endometriosis (DIE). The usefulness of MRI sequences susceptible to chronic blood degradation products, such as T2*-weighted imaging, remains uncertain. The present study aims to evaluate the diagnostic performance of these sequences in addition to the conventional protocol for DIE assessment.

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Background: Intestinal ischemia has been described in case reports of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) disease (coronavirus disease 19, COVID-19).

Aim: To define the clinical and histological, characteristics, as well as the outcome of ischemic gastrointestinal manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Methods: A structured retrospective collection was promoted among three tertiary referral centres during the first wave of the pandemic in northern Italy.

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