Occupational Benzene Exposure and Cancer Risk among Chinese Men: A Report from the Shanghai Men's Health Study.

Background: Benzene exposure has been associated with increased risk of leukemia and other cancers; however, epidemiologic evidence is inconsistent for the latter, and confounding from smoking and alcohol was rarely adjusted.

Methods: We investigated associations between occupational benzene exposure and risk of leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, and lung, stomach, liver, and kidney cancers in a population-based cohort of 61,377 men, ages 40 to 74 years. A job-exposure matrix, constructed by industrial hygienists specifically for the study population, was used to derive cumulative benzene exposure from all jobs held.

Subtraction of single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) in radioembolization: a comparison of four methods.

Background: Subtraction of single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) images has a number of clinical applications in e.g. foci localization in ictal/inter-ictal SPECT and defect detection in rest/stress cardiac SPECT.

Repeatability and reproducibility of the Forskolin-induced swelling (FIS) assay on intestinal organoids from people with Cystic Fibrosis.

Background: The forskolin-induced swelling (FIS) assay measures CFTR function on patient-derived intestinal organoids (PDIOs) and may guide treatment selection for individuals with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). The aim of this study is to demonstrate the repeatability and reproducibility of the FIS assay following a detailed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), thus advancing the validation of the assay for precision medicine (theranostic) applications.

Methods: Over a 2-year period, FIS responses to CFTR modulators were measured in four European labs.

Engineering cytokine therapeutics.

Cytokines have pivotal roles in immunity, making them attractive as therapeutics for a variety of immune-related disorders. However, the widespread clinical use of cytokines has been limited by their short blood half-lives and severe side effects caused by low specificity and unfavourable biodistribution. Innovations in bioengineering have aided in advancing our knowledge of cytokine biology and yielded new technologies for cytokine engineering.

Interventional respiratory motion compensation by simultaneous fluoroscopic and nuclear imaging: a phantom study.

Purpose: A compact and mobile hybrid c-arm scanner, capable of simultaneously acquiring nuclear and fluoroscopic projections and SPECT/CBCT, was developed to aid fluoroscopy-guided interventional procedures involving the administration of radionuclides (e.g. hepatic radioembolization).

Human Data Science.

Most data science is about people, and opinions on the value of human data differ. The author offers a synthesis of overly optimistic and overly pessimistic views of human data science: it should become a science, with errors systematically studied and their effects mitigated-a goal that can only be achieved by bringing together expertise from a range of disciplines.

Technical Note: Nuclear imaging with an x-ray flat panel detector: A proof-of-concept study.

Purpose: Interventional procedures involving radionuclides (e.g., radioembolization) would benefit from single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) performed in the intervention room because the activity distribution could be immediately visualized.

Adaptive scan duration in SPECT: Evaluation for radioembolization.

Purpose: It may be challenging to select the optimal scan duration for single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) protocols because the activity distribution characteristics can differ in every scan. Using simulations and experiments, we investigated whether the scan duration can be optimized for every scan separately by evaluating the activity distribution during scanning. We refer to this as adaptive scanning.

Automatic extraction of the intracranial volume in fetal and neonatal MR scans using convolutional neural networks.

MR images of infants and fetuses allow non-invasive analysis of the brain. Quantitative analysis of brain development requires automatic brain tissue segmentation that is typically preceded by segmentation of the intracranial volume (ICV). Fast changes in the size and morphology of the developing brain, motion artifacts, and large variation in the field of view make ICV segmentation a challenging task.

Accelerated SPECT image reconstruction with FBP and an image enhancement convolutional neural network.

Background: Monte Carlo-based iterative reconstruction to correct for photon scatter and collimator effects has been proven to be superior over analytical correction schemes in single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT/CT), but it is currently not commonly used in daily clinical practice due to the long associated reconstruction times. We propose to use a convolutional neural network (CNN) to upgrade fast filtered back projection (FBP) image quality so that reconstructions comparable in quality to the Monte Carlo-based reconstruction can be obtained within seconds.

Results: A total of 128 technetium-99m macroaggregated albumin pre-treatment SPECT/CT scans used to guide hepatic radioembolization were available.

Respiratory motion compensation in interventional liver SPECT using simultaneous fluoroscopic and nuclear imaging.

Purpose: Quantitative accuracy of the single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) reconstruction of the pretreatment procedure of liver radioembolization is crucial for dosimetry; visual quality is important for detecting doses deposited outside the planned treatment volume. Quantitative accuracy is limited by respiratory motion. Conventional gating eliminates motion by count rejection but increases noise, which degrades the visual reconstruction quality.

A comparative study of NaI(Tl), CeBr, and CZT for use in a real-time simultaneous nuclear and fluoroscopic dual-layer detector.

Simultaneous acquisition of nuclear and fluoroscopic projections could be of benefit for image-guided radionuclide administration. A gamma camera positioned behind an x-ray flat panel detector can accomplish such simultaneous acquisition, but the gamma camera performance suffers from the intense x-ray dose. A regular NaI(Tl)-based camera has nominal performance up to 0.

Performance of a dual-layer scanner for hybrid SPECT/CBCT.

Fluoroscopic procedures involving radionuclides would benefit from interventional nuclear imaging by obtaining real-time feedback on the activity distribution. We have previously proposed a dual-layer detector that offers such procedural guidance by simultaneous fluoroscopic and nuclear planar imaging. Acquisition of single photon computed tomography (SPECT) and cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) could provide additional information on the activity distribution.

Impact of automatically detected motion artifacts on coronary calcium scoring in chest computed tomography.

The amount of coronary artery calcification (CAC) quantified in computed tomography (CT) scans enables prediction of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. However, interscan variability of CAC quantification is high, especially in scans made without ECG synchronization. We propose a method for automatic detection of CACs that are severely affected by cardiac motion.

Fast technetium-99m liver SPECT for evaluation of the pretreatment procedure for radioembolization dosimetry.

Purpose: The efficiency of radioembolization procedures could be greatly enhanced if results of the Tc-MAA pretreatment procedure were immediately available in the interventional suite, enabling 1-day procedures as a result of direct estimation of the hepatic radiation dose and lung shunt fraction. This would, however, require a relatively fast, but still quantitative, SPECT procedure, which might be achieved with acquisition protocols using nonuniform durations of the projection images.

Methods: SPECT liver images of the 150-MBq Tc-MAA pretreatment procedure were simulated for eight different lesion locations and two different lesion sizes using the digital XCAT phantom for both single- and dual-head scanning geometries with respective total acquisition times of 1, 2, 5, 10, and 30 min.

Executive functions and processing speed in children with mild to borderline intellectual disabilities and externalizing behavior problems.

Several studies suggest impaired executive functions (EFs) in children with externalizing behavior problems and average intelligence (e.g., IQ > 85).

GATA4 represses an ileal program of gene expression in the proximal small intestine by inhibiting the acetylation of histone H3, lysine 27.

GATA4 is expressed in the proximal 85% of small intestine where it promotes a proximal intestinal ('jejunal') identity while repressing a distal intestinal ('ileal') identity, but its molecular mechanisms are unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that GATA4 promotes a jejunal versus ileal identity in mouse intestine by directly activating and repressing specific subsets of absorptive enterocyte genes by modulating the acetylation of histone H3, lysine 27 (H3K27), a mark of active chromatin, at sites of GATA4 occupancy. Global analysis of mouse jejunal epithelium showed a statistically significant association of GATA4 occupancy with GATA4-regulated genes.

Changes in mortality patterns following total hip or knee arthroplasty over the past two decades: a nationwide cohort study.

Objective: Total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) are effective procedures for patients with moderate-to-severe osteoarthritis. Mortality rates after THA and TKA may have changed because of new surgical techniques, improvement of peri- and postoperative care, and performance of surgery in older patients having multiple comorbidities. However, data on secular mortality trends are scarce.