Reported and Unreported Potentially Important Incidental Findings in Urgent Nonenhanced Abdominal CT for Renal Colic.

Objective: The aim of the study was to retrospectively evaluate the prevalence of reported and unreported potentially important incidental findings (PIFs) in consecutive nonenhanced abdominal CTs performed specifically for renal colic in the urgent setting.

Methods: One radiologist, blinded to the finalized report, retrospectively re-evaluated nonenhanced abdominal CTs performed from January to December 2017 on adult patients from the emergency department with the specific request of urgent evaluation for renal colic, searching for PIFs.

Results: The CTs of 312 patients were included in the study.

Patient Perception of Musculoskeletal MR: A Survey Research.

Background: When undergoing magnetic resonance (MR) exams, patients need to lie still in a noisy and enclosed environment for a long time. This condition, together with the anxiety burden related to the possible implications of the scan results, can entail a diagnostic outcome of poor quality.

Objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the personal perception and experience of adult patients undergoing unenhanced musculoskeletal MR.

Effect of iodinated contrast medium on thyroid function: a study in children undergoing cardiac computed tomography.

Background: Few studies, and with conflicting results, have evaluated the potential effects of iodinated contrast media on children's thyroid function.

Objective: To investigate the effects of iodinated contrast medium on thyroid function in neonates, infants and young children with congenital heart disease undergoing cardiac computed tomography (CT).

Materials And Methods: We retrospectively evaluated 10 neonates (group 1) and 23 infants and young children (group 2) without thyroid or renal disease for serum levels of thyroid-stimulating hormone, free triiodothyronine and free thyroxine before contrast-enhanced cardiac CT, 48 h after CT and at discharge from the hospital.

Radiological exams on end-stage oncologic patients before hospice admission.

Purpose: To evaluate frequency, type, and cost of diagnostic and interventional radiological exams performed on end-stage oncologic patients in the 90 days before Hospice admission.

Materials And Methods: Data of patients admitted to Hospice from January 2012 through June 2013 (18 months) were cross-checked with data from the digital archive of the Radiology Department. Frequency and type of exams performed before admission were analyzed across three 1-month periods, namely M, M, M, corresponding to 90-61, 60-31 and 30-1 days before admission.

Consanguinity and late fertility: spatial analysis reveals positive association patterns.

The role of consanguinity on human complex traits is an important and controversial issue. In this work we focused on the Sardinian population and examined the effect of consanguineous unions on late female fertility. During the last century the island has been characterized by a high incidence of marriages between relatives, favoured by socio economic conditions and geographical isolation, and by high fertility despite a widespread tendency to delay reproduction.

Spatial analysis of the aptitude to late maternity on the island of Sardinia.

This study examines local heterogeneity in the aptitude of Sardinian mothers towards late reproduction, and explores its temporal persistence and association with both post-reproductive longevity and propensity to consanguineous marriage. Data on women's fertility from 1961 and birth records for 1980-1996 from Vital Statistics were analysed by means of the following indicators: the incidence of old mothers at last childbirth, female mortality (1980-2001) at 80 years of age and over and the proportion of consanguineous marriages (1930-1969). A variable kernel-smoothing method was used to create interpretable representations of the true spatial structure of the indicators, and to highlight areas of higher than expected intensity.

Interplay of spatial aggregation and computational geometry in extracting diagnostic features from cardiac activation data.

Functional imaging plays an important role in the assessment of organ functions, as it provides methods to represent the spatial behavior of diagnostically relevant variables within reference anatomical frameworks. The salient physical events that underly a functional image can be unveiled by appropriate feature extraction methods capable to exploit domain-specific knowledge and spatial relations at multiple abstraction levels and scales. In this work we focus on general feature extraction methods that can be applied to cardiac activation maps, a class of functional images that embed spatio-temporal information about the wavefront propagation.

Automated detection of qualitative spatio-temporal features in electrocardiac activation maps.

Objective: This paper describes a piece of work aiming at the realization of a tool for the automated interpretation of electrocardiac maps. Such maps can capture a number of electrical conduction pathologies, such as arrhytmia, that can be missed by the analysis of traditional electrocardiograms. But, their introduction into the clinical practice is still far away as their interpretation requires skills that belongs to very few experts.

Birthweight by gestational age in preterm babies according to a Gaussian mixture model.

Objective: To provide a statistically sound criterion for identifying implausibly large birthweights for gestational age.

Design: Review of ISTAT 1990-1994 national newborn records.

Setting: Italy

Population: Forty-two thousand and twenty-nine single first and second liveborn preterm babies.