Feasibility of dual-phase Tc-MDP SPECT/CT imaging in rheumatoid arthritis evaluation.

Background: To prospectively demonstrate the feasibility of performing dual-phase SPECT/CT for the assessment of the small joints of the hands of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, and to evaluate the reliability of the quantitative and qualitative measures derived from the resulting images.

Methods: A SPECT/CT imaging protocol was developed in this pilot study to scan both hands simultaneously in participants with RA, in two phases of Tc-MDP radiotracer uptake, namely the soft-tissue blood pool phase (within 15 minutes after radiotracer injection) and osseous phase (after 3 hours). Joints were evaluated qualitatively (normal abnormal uptake) and quantitatively [by measuring a newly developed metric, maximum corrected count ratio (MCCR)].

Opportunistic body composition evaluation in patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma: association of survival with F-FDG PET/CT muscle metrics.

Objective: F-FDG PET is widely used to accurately stage numerous types of cancers. Although F-FDG PET/CT features of tumors aid in predicting patient prognosis, there is increasing interest in mining additional quantitative body composition data that could improve the prognostic power of F-FDG PET/CT, without additional examination costs or radiation exposure. The aim of this study was to determine the association between overall survival and body composition metrics derived from routine clinical F-FDG PET/CT examinations.

Nasal Dorsal Augmentation with Freeze-Dried Allograft Bone: 10-Year Comprehensive Review.

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate freeze-dried cortical allograft bone for nasal dorsal augmentation. The 42-month report on 18 patients was published in 2009 in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery with 89 percent success at level II evidence, and this article is the 10-year comprehensive review of 62 patients.

Methods: All grafts met standards recommended by the American Association of Tissue Banks, the U.

Early and Delayed 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT Findings in Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis.

We report the case of a 74-year-old man with seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and radiographic osteoarthritis (OA) who underwent dual-phase high-resolution Tc-MDP SPECT/CT. Early radiotracer enhancement was noted in 2 RA joints of the right hand, both presenting with a ring-like uptake pattern around the joint, consistent with synovitis. Insignificant early enhancement was noted at the first carpometacarpal joint, despite presentation of CT features of OA.

Evaluation of penalty design in penalized maximum-likelihood image reconstruction for lesion detection.

Detecting cancerous lesions is a major clinical application in emission tomography. Previously, we developed a method to design a shift-variant quadratic penalty function in penalized maximum-likelihood (PML) image reconstruction to improve the lesion detectability. We used a multiview channelized Hotelling observer (mvCHO) to assess the lesion detectability in three-dimensional images and validated the penalty design using computer simulations.

Nasal dorsal augmentation with freeze-dried allograft bone.

Background: Properly prepared freeze-dried bone has been used with impunity by orthopedic surgeons since 1992 without a single report of disease transmission. The aim of this study was to evaluate freeze-dried cortical allograft bone for nasal dorsal augmentation.

Methods: Freeze-dried human cortical bone was obtained from DCI Donor Services, Nashville, Tennessee.

Initial characterization of a dedicated breast PET/CT scanner during human imaging.

Unlabelled: We have constructed a dedicated breast PET/CT scanner capable of high-resolution functional and anatomic imaging. Here, we present an initial characterization of scanner performance during patient imaging.

Methods: The system consisted of a lutetium oxyorthosilicate-based dual-planar head PET camera (crystal size, 3 x 3 x 20 mm) and 768-slice cone-beam CT.

Comparison of two-dimensional and three-dimensional iterative watershed segmentation methods in hepatic tumor volumetrics.

In this work the authors compare the accuracy of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) implementations of a computer-aided image segmentation method to that of physician observers (using manual outlining) for volume measurements of liver tumors visualized with diagnostic contrast-enhanced and PET/CT-based non-contrast-enhanced (PET-CT) CT scans. The method assessed is a hybridization of the watershed method using observer-set markers with a gradient vector flow approach. This method is known as the iterative watershed segmentation (IWS) method.

Intense FDG uptake in an intra-articular localized giant-cell tumor of the tendon sheath (pigmented villonodular synovitis) mimics metastatic melanoma.

We describe a patient with metastatic melanoma, one year following a clinical trial of VEGF.

The role of F-18 FDG positron emission tomography in preoperative assessment of the liver in patients being considered for curative resection of hepatic metastases from colorectal cancer.

Purpose: The authors' goal was to determine the sensitivity and specificity of F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) for identifying patients with hepatic metastases from colorectal cancer and the accuracy of PET for determining the number and distribution of lesions within the liver. Intraoperative sonography and surgical inspection and palpation were used as the reference standard.

Methods: Twenty-three patients being evaluated for surgical resection of hepatic metastases from colorectal carcinoma underwent FDG PET before operation.