Prediction of Parkinson's disease by transcranial sonography-based deep learning.

Objectives: Transcranial sonography has been used as a valid neuroimaging tool to diagnose Parkinson's disease (PD). This study aimed to develop a modified transcranial sonography (TCS) technique based on a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) model to predict Parkinson's disease.

Methods: This retrospective diagnostic study was conducted using 1529 transcranial sonography images collected from 854 patients with PD and 775 normal controls admitted to the Second Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University (Suzhou, Jiangsu, China) between September 2019 and May 2022.

Relationship between sarcopenic obesity and cognitive function in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Previous research has linked sarcopenic obesity (SO) to cognitive function; however, the relationship between cognitive performance and SO Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate their relationship in AD patients.

Methods: One hundred and twenty mild to moderate AD patients and 56 normal controls were recruited.

Sarcopenia is associated with non-motor symptoms in Han Chinese patients with Parkinson's Disease: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Sarcopenia is commonly seen in the older adults and increases in incidence with age, also in Parkinson's disease (PD). Although research has indicated that the development of sarcopenia in patients with PD may be related to both motor symptoms and non-motor symptoms (NMS), the precise relationship between the two conditions remains unclear. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the incidence of sarcopenia in patients with PD and its association with NMS.

Quantitative Transcranial Sonography Evaluation of Substantia Nigra Hyperechogenicity Is Useful for Predicting Levodopa-Induced Dyskinesia in Parkinson Disease.

Levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID) is a common motor complication in Parkinson disease (PD). Abnormal substantia nigra hyperechogenicity (SN+), detected by transcranial sonography (TCS), plays an important role in the differential diagnosis of PD. The purpose of this study was to investigate the predictive performance of quantitative SN+ evaluations for LID.

Clinical study of transcranial sonography image characteristics in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.

Objective: This study aimed to explore the relationship between patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) from subgroups of varying severity and substantia nigra (SN) hyperechogenicity as well as cerebral blood flow detected by transcranial sonography (TCS). The study also explored if there were differences in damage of the SN and in the cerebral blood flow between the bilateral sides.

Methods: Right-handed men diagnosed with OSA by polysomnography were recruited from August 2018 to August 2020.

Association Between Asymmetry of Substantia Nigra Hyperechogenicity and Clinical Characteristics in Different Parkinson Disease Subtypes: A 5-Year Follow-up Study.

Our study focused on three aspects to determine whether bilateral substantia nigra hyperechogenicity (SN+) is asymmetrical, whether the asymmetry of SN+ is related to the clinical features and whether there is variation in SN+ asymmetry during the progression of Parkinson disease (PD). This follow-up study included 234 patients with PD, who were divided into tremor PD (TD, n = 67) and non-tremor PD (NTD, n = 167) groups based on the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) Part III. All participants underwent transcranial sonography (TCS) and clinical assessment.

Cognitive Performance is Associated with Altered Cerebral Hemodynamics Assessed by Transcranial Ultrasound in Parkinson's Disease.

Purpose: Cognitive impairment (CI) is a common but debilitating non-motor symptom in Parkinson's disease (PD). Although cerebrovascular functions are related to cognitive performance in healthy individuals, such a relation in PD remains elusive. This study aims to assess the association between cerebrovascular function and cognitive performance in PD individuals.

Diagnostic value of ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound in septic acute kidney injury.

Purpose: This study aimed to explore the clinical value of ultrasonic Doppler examination and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (US) in the circulation of septic acute kidney injury (AKI).

Methods: Patients with intensive care unit-related infection were divided into AKI group and control groups. The AKI group was divided into three subgroups according to the serum creatinine value: stage 1, stage 2, and stage 3.

Efficacy and safety of short duration radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy for advanced rectal cancer.

Background: Radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy is widely used for the treatment of rectal cancer preoperatively. Although the combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy as an established preoperative neoadjuvant therapy shows high efficacy in the treatment of rectal cancer, some patients experience a response of poor tolerance and outcomes due to the long duration radiotherapy. The study compared short duration radiotherapy plus chemotherapy long duration radiotherapy plus chemotherapy for rectal cancer to determine whether short duration radiation treatment should be considered to diminish complications, reduce risk of recurrence and improve survival in patients with rectal cancer.

Shear wave elastography characteristics of upper limb muscle in rigidity-dominant Parkinson's disease.

Background: Rigidity is one of the major manifestations of Parkinson's disease (PD), but no quantitative and objective imaging method has been developed to measure rigidity. Ultrasound shear wave elastography (SWE) can reflect the stiffness of tissue by providing a quantitative index. Thus, we conducted this study to evaluate the potential clinical value of SWE in assessing rigidity in PD.

Endoscopic radiofrequency ablation plus plastic stent placement versus stent placement alone for unresectable extrahepatic biliary cancer: a multicenter randomized controlled trial.

Background And Aims: We sought to compare the efficacy and safety between endoscopic radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and stent placement alone in patients with unresectable extrahepatic biliary cancer (EBC).

Methods: In this randomized controlled trial, patients with locally advanced or metastatic cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) or ampullary cancer who were unsuitable for surgery were recruited from 3 tertiary centers. Eligible patients were randomly assigned to RFA plus plastic stent placement (RFA group) or plastic stent placement alone (stent placement alone group) in a 1:1 ratio.

Echogenicity Changes in Brainstem Raphe Detected by Transcranial Parenchymal Sonography and Clinical Characteristics in Parkinson's Disease.

Decreased brainstem raphe (BR) echogenicity detected by transcranial parenchymal sonography (TCS) is associated with depression in psychiatric and neurologic diseases. However, previous studies focusing on the relationship between motor and non-motor symptoms and echogenicity changes in BR in patients with PD yielded controversial results. To investigate the relationship between echogenicity changes in BR detected by TCS and motor and a series of non-motor symptoms in patients with PD.

Substantia nigra echogenicity is associated with serum ferritin, gender and iron-related genes in Parkinson's disease.

Substantia nigra (SN) hyperechogenicity is present in most Parkinson's disease (PD) cases but is occasionally absent in some. To date, age, gender, disease severity, and other factors have been reported to be associated with SN hyperechogenicity in PD. Previous studies have discovered that excess iron deposition in the SN underlies its hyperechogenicity in PD, which may also indicate the involvement of genes associated with iron metabolism in hyperechogenicity.

Impact of region of interest size on transcranial sonography based computer-aided diagnosis for Parkinson's disease.

Transcranial sonography (TCS) has gained increasing application for diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) in clinical practice in recent years, because most PD patients, even in the early stage of PD, have abnormal hyperechogenicity of the substantia nigra (SN) in brainstem shown in TCS images. Therefore, the region of interest (ROI) for feature extraction should cover the SN region in a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system. The ROI size naturally affects the feature representation.

[Observation of early clinical effect of percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic technology in treating cervical spondylotic radiculopathy].

Objective: To explore the early clinical effect and safety of percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic technology for cervical spondylotic radiculopathy.

Methods: From August 2016 to September 2017, 14 patients with cervical spondylotic radiculopathy who responded poorly to non-surgical treatment for at least 6 weeks underwent percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic discectomy via posterior approach. There were 6 males and 8 females, aging from 32 to 68 years old with an average of (40.

PAK5-mediated phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of NF-κB-p65 promotes breast cancer cell proliferation in vitro and in vivo.

Background: Abnormal proliferation is significantly associated with the promotion of malignant tumor. Growing evidence suggest that the signal pathways of p21-activated kinase 5 (PAK5) have been found in various tumor progression, however, the role of PAK5 in breast cancer remains largely unclear.

Methods: We evaluated PAK5 and p65 staining in breast cancer tissues (BCTs) and paired non-cancerous tissues (NTs) using tissue microarray (TMA) technology.

Transcranial Sonographic Alterations of Substantia Nigra and Third Ventricle in Parkinson's Disease with or without Dementia.

Background: Numerous studies have demonstrated that patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have a higher prevalence of substantia nigra (SN) hyperechogenicity compared with controls. Our aim was to explore the neuroimaging characteristics of transcranial sonography (TCS) of patients with PD and those with PD with dementia (PDD). The correlation between the echogenicity of the SN and clinical symptoms in Chinese patients with PDD was also assessed.

[Effect of methylphenidate on c-Fos expression in parvalbumin interneurons of juvenile rat frontal cortex].

The etiology of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been generally linked to the decrease in cortex activity, as well as to the reduction in dopamine (DA) and norepinephrine (NE) levels. Methylphenidate (MPH; Ritalin) is the most commonly prescribed medication for ADHD. It has been determined that MPH acts primarily on the dopaminergic and noradrenergic systems through blockade of DA and NE transporters, thereby increasing the concentrations of these neurotransmitters in the brain to correct the attention deficits and hyperactivity.