Background & Aims: Intra and inter-pathologist variability poses a significant challenge in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) biopsy evaluation, leading to suboptimal selection of patients and confounded assessment of histological response in clinical trials. We evaluated the utility of an artificial intelligence (AI) digital pathology (DP) platform to aid pathologists improve the reliability of fibrosis staging.
Methods: A total of 120 digitized histology slides from two trials (NCT03517540, NCT03912532) were analysed by four expert hepatopathologists, with and without AI-assistance in a randomized, cross-over design. We utilized the HistoIndex AI DP platform, consisting of unstained second harmonic generation/two photon excitation fluorescence (SHG/TPEF) images and AI quantitative fibrosis (qF) values.
Results: AI-assistance significantly improved inter-pathologist kappa for fibrosis (F)-staging, particularly for early fibrosis (F0-F2), with reduced variance around the median reads. Intra-pathologist kappa was unchanged. AI-assistance increased pathologist concordance for identifying clinical trial inclusion subjects (F2-F3) from 45% to 71%, exclusion subjects (F0/F1/F4) from 38% to 55%, and evaluation of fibrosis response to treatment from 49% to 61%. SHG/TPEF images, qFibrosis continuous values, and qF-stage were considered useful by at least 3 out of 4 pathologists in 83%, 55%, and 38% cases, respectively. In the context of a clinical trial, the increase in inter-pathologist concordance in this study is modeled to result in a ∼25% reduction in the potential need for adjudication as well as a ∼50% increase in the study power.
Conclusions: The use of AI DP enhances inter-rater reliability of fibrosis staging for MASH. This indicates that the SHG/TPEF-based AI DP tool is useful for assisting pathologists in assessing fibrosis, thereby enhancing clinical trial efficiency and reliability of fibrosis readouts in response to treatments.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhep.2024.11.032 | DOI Listing |
Expert Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol
January 2025
Chronic Viral Illness Service, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Canada.
Introduction: Accurate and reliable diagnosis and monitoring of hepatic fibrosis is increasingly important given the variable natural history in chronic liver disease (CLD) and expanding antifibrotic therapeutic options targeting reversibility of early-stage cirrhosis. This highlights the need to develop more refined and effective noninvasive techniques for the dynamic assessment of fibrogenesis and fibrolysis.
Areas Covered: We conducted a literature review on PubMed, from 1 December 1970, to 1 November 2024, to evaluate and compare available blood-based and imaging-based noninvasive tools for hepatic fibrosis diagnosis and monitoring.
Int J Mol Sci
December 2024
Goethe University, Frankfurt University Hospital, Medical Clinic 1, 60596 Frankfurt, Germany.
This study demonstrates the effectiveness of propidium iodide as a reliable marker for detecting dead or dying cells in frozen liver tissue sections. By comparing propidium iodide staining with the widely used Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay, both methods showed consistent results in disease models such as alcohol-induced fibrosis and Western diet-induced fatty liver. Additionally, propidium iodide was successfully co-stained with other fluorescent markers, like phalloidin (for actin filaments) and antibodies targeting collagen, enabling detailed spatial analysis of dying cells within tissue.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Med Chem
January 2025
3rd Department of Cardiology, General Hospital of Thoracic Diseases 'Sotiria', National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Medicine, Athens, Greece.
Arterial hypertension is a silent and progressive disease with deleterious vascular implications on all target organs, including the heart, the brain, the kidneys, and the eyes. Oxidative stress, defined as the overproduction of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) over antioxidants, is capable of deteriorating not only the normal endothelial but also the cellular function with further cardiovascular implications. Xanthine oxidase activity, NADPH oxidase overexpression, and ROS production lead to hypertension and high arterial tone, culminating in end-organ damage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Cardiovasc Disord
January 2025
Department of Radiology, Qujing No.1 Hospital, Kirin District Garden Road no. 1, Qujing, 655099, China.
Background: Left ventricular (LV) myocardial contraction patterns can be assessed using LV mechanical dispersion (LVMD), a parameter closely associated with electrical activation patterns. Despite its potential clinical significance, limited research has been conducted on LVMD following myocardial infarction (MI). This study aims to evaluate the predictive value of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR)-derived LVMD for adverse clinical outcomes and to explore its correlation with myocardial scar heterogeneity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Department of Infectious Diseases, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, No. 87 Xiangya Road, Changsha, 410008, Hunan, China.
This study aims to construct and validate noninvasive diagnosis models for evaluating significant liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). A cohort of 259 CHB patients were selected as research subjects. Through random grouping, 182 cases were included in the training set and 77 cases in the validation set.
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