Proceedings from an international consensus meeting on ablation in urogenital diseases.

Percutaneous image-guided ablation techniques are a consolidated therapeutic alternative for patients with high preoperative surgical risk for the management of oncological diseases in multiple body districts. Each technique has both pros and cons according to the type of energy delivered, mechanism of action, and site of application. The present article reviews the most recent literature results on ablation techniques applied in the field of genitourinary diseases (kidney, adrenal glands, prostate, and uterus), describing the advantages of the use of each technique and their technical limitations and summarizing the major recommendations from an international consensus meeting.

Hug sign in intraprocedural cone-beam-CT to predict short-term response to combined treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Objectives: Combined treatment of ablation and chemoembolization for hepatocellular carcinoma represents a promising therapy to increase treatment efficacy and improve patient survival. The "hug sign" is a recently introduced radiological sign consisting in deposition of beads/contrast agent during transarterial chemoembolization in the hyperemic area surrounding the post-ablation volume, seen during intraprocedural unenhanced cone-beam CT, that may indicate intraprocedural success. Aim of our retrospective study was to analyze the usefulness of the "hug sign" at the intraprocedural unenhanced cone-beam CT as an early predictor of response to combined treatment, based on the hug sign angle.

CT-guided high dose rate brachytherapy can induce multiple systemic proteins of proliferation and angiogenesis predicting outcome in HCC.

Background And Purpose: To determine the potential prognostic value of proliferation and angiogenesis plasma proteins following CT-guided high dose rate brachytherapy (HDR-BT) of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Materials And Methods: For this prospective study, HDR-BT (1 × 15 Gy) was administered to 24 HCC patients. Plasma was obtained and analyzed using an Olink proteomics Target-96 immuno-oncology-panel that included multiple markers of angiogenesis and proliferation.

Fibroblast growth factors induce hepatic tumorigenesis post radiofrequency ablation.

Image-guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is used to treat focal tumors in the liver and other organs. Despite potential advantages over surgery, hepatic RFA can promote local and distant tumor growth by activating pro-tumorigenic growth factor and cytokines. Thus, strategies to identify and suppress pro-oncogenic effects of RFA are urgently required to further improve the therapeutic effect.

Early-Stage HCC Percutaneous Locoregional Management: East versus West Perspectives.

Hepatocellular carcinoma represents an important cause of death worldwide. Early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma patients not suitable for surgery can be treated with a variety of minimally invasive locoregional interventional oncology techniques. Various guidelines in different countries address the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma, but the actual treatment is usually discussed by a multidisciplinary tumor board in a personalized manner, leading to potential treatment differences based on Western and Eastern perspectives.

Circulating miR-21 as a prognostic biomarker in HCC treated by CT-guided high-dose rate brachytherapy.

Background And Aims: Prognostic biomarkers identifying patients with early tumor progression after local ablative therapy remain an unmet clinical need. The aim of this study was to investigate circulating miR-21 and miR-210 levels as prognostic biomarkers of HCC treated by CT-guided high-dose rate brachytherapy (HDR-BT).

Materials And Methods: 24 consecutive HCC patients (BCLC A and B) treated with CT-guided HDR-BT (1 × 15 Gy) were included in this prospective IRB-approved study.

Interventional Oncology and Immuno-Oncology: Current Challenges and Future Trends.

Personalized cancer treatments help to deliver tailored and biologically driven therapies for cancer patients. Interventional oncology techniques are able to treat malignancies in a locoregional fashion, with a variety of mechanisms of action leading to tumor necrosis. Tumor destruction determines a great availability of tumor antigens that can be recognized by the immune system, potentially triggering an immune response.

Emerging Indications for Interventional Oncology: Expert Discussion on New Locoregional Treatments.

Interventional oncology (IO) employs image-guided techniques to perform minimally invasive procedures, providing lower-risk alternatives to many traditional medical and surgical therapies for cancer patients. Since its advent, due to rapidly evolving research development, its role has expanded to encompass the diagnosis and treatment of diseases across multiple body systems. In detail, interventional oncology is expanding its role across a wide spectrum of disease sites, offering a potential cure, control, or palliative care for many types of cancer patients.

Prediction of Protumorigenic Effects after Image-Guided Radiofrequency Ablation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Using Biomarkers.

Purpose: To perform radiofrequency (RF) ablation of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and to assess serological and histopathological markers of tumorigenesis in distant untreated tumors to determine whether these were associated with unfavorable outcomes such as early relapse and increased biological aggressiveness.

Materials And Methods: The study cohort comprised 13 patients from a prospective single-arm study. All patients underwent 2 ablation sessions of multifocal HCC nodules 14 days apart.

Lymphadenopathy Associated With the COVID-19 Vaccine.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has dominated nearly everyone's life since its initial outbreak in the Hubei province of China in December 2019. The disease had spread quickly throughout the world causing extensive, widespread morbidity, over two million deaths, and economical and social devastation over the entire world. Researchers and pharmaceutical companies around the globe have been racing to develop potent and safe vaccines for the disease.

US-guided laser treatment of parathyroid adenomas.

To determine the clinical efficacy of laser ablation for the tredatment of primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT). Twelve patients with pHPT were treated with laser ablation. Energy was administered by means of 1.

Quantitative MRI for Assessment of Treatment Outcomes in a Rabbit VX2 Hepatic Tumor Model.

Globally, primary and secondary liver cancer is one of the most common cancer types, accounting 8.2% of deaths worldwide in 2018. One of the key strategies to improve the patient's prognosis is the early diagnosis, when liver function is still preserved.

In-cell determination of Lactate Dehydrogenase Activity in a Luminal Breast Cancer Model ⁻ Investigation of Excised Xenograft Tumor Slices Using dDNP Hyperpolarized [1-C]pyruvate.

[1-C]pyruvate, the most widely used compound in dissolution-dynamic nuclear polarization (dDNP) magnetic resonance (MR), enables the visualization of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity. This activity had been demonstrated in a wide variety of cancer models, ranging from cultured cells, to xenograft models, to human tumors in situ. Here we quantified the LDH activity in precision cut tumor slices (PCTS) of breast cancer xenografts.

Image-Guided Thyroid Ablation: Proposal for Standardization of Terminology and Reporting Criteria.

Image-guided tumor ablation is commonly performed in clinical practice. Trying to standardize terminology and data collection to enable a more reliable comparison among the different studies, in 2003, a document entitled "Image-Guided Tumor Ablation: Proposal for Standardization of Terms and Reporting Criteria" was published by the International Working Group on Image-Guided Tumor Ablation. Since then, ablations have evolved significantly, with the development of new technology and techniques and applications.

Treatment of Metastatic Lymph Nodes in the Neck from Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma with Percutaneous Laser Ablation.

Purpose: To assess the effectiveness of percutaneous laser ablation (PLA) of cervical lymph node metastases from papillary thyroid carcinoma.

Materials And Methods: 24 patients (62.3 ± 13.

Parallel imaging enhanced MR colonography using a phantom model.

Purpose: To compare various Array Spatial and Sensitivity Encoding Technique (ASSET)-enhanced T2W SSFSE (single shot fast spin echo) and T1-weighted (T1W) 3D SPGR (spoiled gradient recalled echo) sequences for polyp detection and image quality at MR colonography (MRC) in a phantom model. Limitations of MRC using standard 3D SPGR T1W imaging include the long breath-hold required to cover the entire colon within one acquisition and the relatively low spatial resolution due to the long acquisition time. Parallel imaging using ASSET-enhanced T2W SSFSE and 3D T1W SPGR imaging results in much shorter imaging times, which allows for increased spatial resolution.