Objective To investigate the differential value of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) and time-intensity curves(TIC) in diagnosing testicular and epididymal mass lesions.Methods CEUS via intravenous bolus injection of SonoVue and TIC were performed for quantitative analysis of testicular and epididymal mass lesions.Forty-one patients with 42 testicular and epididymal mass lesions and 26 normal testicles were examined with CUES,the perfusion progress were recorded dynamically,which findings were compared with surgery.Results Twenty-three (54.76％) malignant masses displayed enhanced pattern as evenly enhanced,fast-in and fast-out (8.7％),evenly enhanced,fast-in and slow-out (65.2 ％ ),unevenly enhanced,fast-in and slow-out (26.1％ ).Ninteen (45.24 ％ ) benign masses revealed enhanced pattern as unevenly enhanced,fast-in and slow-out ( 10.5 ％),evenly enhanced,slow-in and slowout ( 10.5 ％ ),unevenly enhanced,slow-in and slow-out ( 36.9 ％ ),without enhancement ( 42.1％ ).There was statistical difference of peak intensity,time to peak and areas among malignant group,benign group and normal group ( P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions CEUS combined with TIC could provide differential diagnostic value for testicular and epididymal mass lesions.

Objective To investigate the value of mesenteric vascular CTA in the diagnosis of small intestinal neoplasms.Methods A retrospective analysis of mesenteric CTA from January 2008 to April 2013 was conducted in 51 patients with pathologically proven small intestinal neoplasms.Features of intestinal neoplasms CTA signs including neoplasm feeding artery,draining vein,mesangial side vasa recta and the formed neoplasm vessels,were observed.Two radiologists individually used two methods,namely intestinal tumor feeding artery positioning method and Cole fractionation method,for diagnosis and localization diagnosis of tumor,and also for comparing the results with those of surgical pathology.McNemar Chi-square test was adopted to evaluate the diagnosis differences between the two physicians and between the two methods by the same physician.Kappa value was used to assess the consistency of the results.Results Features of intestinal tumors CTA signs:12 cases of enlarged neoplasm feeding artery,9 cases of early displayed draining vein,22 cases of enlarged mesangial side vasa recta,and 11 cases of vessels formed inside and around the neoplasm,single lesion for all and the largest lesion diameter≥ 5 cm for 37 cases.The accuracy of Cole fractionation method positioning and the feeding artery positioning were 84.31％(43/51) and 98.03％(50/51) respectively.Moderate consistency(Kappa=0.49,P＜0.01) was seen with Cole fractionation method by the two physicians and high consistency(Kappa=1.00,P＜0.01) with feeding artery positioning method.McNemar Chi-square test showed no significant difference between the two methods by the same physician and the consistency of the results from the two methods was passable(P were 0.062 and 0.125).Conclusion Mesenteric CTA can display the intestinal tumor feeding arteries and draining veins,and is helpful in identification of the relationship between the tumor and its surrounding blood vessels,which can improve the accuracy of pre-operative localization and qualitative diagnosis for small intestinal tumor.

Objective To investigate the diagnostic value of dual-energy CT virtual non-contrast (VNC) technology for osteoporosis(OP). Methods Dual-energy CT images of 50 patients with lumbar traumas were collected prospectively.Patients who suffer from vertebral bodies fractures between lumbar 1 to 4, have internal metal fixations or underwent percutaneous vertebroplasty, or presented tumors or compromised bone metabolism induced by diseases or medications were excluded.The scanning range was from the upper edge of the 12th thoracic vertebral body to the lower edge of the first sacral vertebral body. The voltages of tubes A and B were 90 kV and Sn 150 kV,and the reference tubes currents were 220 mAs and 138 mAs. Image reconstruction was performed using Advanced Modeled Iterative Reconstruction (ADMIRE)with iterative strength of 3 and convolution kernel of Qr 40.The default parameters of the virtual non-contrast software were corrected by the standard recommended by the Bone Marrow software of the post-processing platform Syngo.via,and the CT value of calcium(contrast media CM),the CT value of mixed energy images(regular CT value,rCT),the calcium density(CaD)and the fat fraction(Fat)were measured. The bone mineral density (BMD) and T score of each lumbar vertebra from lumbar 1 to lumbar 4 were measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry(DXA).With T score less than or equal to the 2.5 standard deviation as the gold standard for the diagnosis of OP,correlations between CT measurements and vertebral BMDs were analyzed using Pearson correlation analysis and linear regression and the diagnostic values of different CT measurements for OP were compared using receiver operating characteristic curve. Results Each of the vertebral bodies was analyzed as a single unit.Fifty of them were osteoporotic and the rest 116 were non-osteoporotic.Except for Fat,the CT measurement parameters of the osteoporotic vertebral bodies were lower than those of the ones without osteoporosis, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.01).CM,rCT and CaD were significantly correlated with BMD(r were 0.75,0.65,0.71,all P<0.01)and there was a linear relationship(F were 209.91,120.24,167.69,all P<0.01).Meanwhile,CM,rCT,CaD and T score were also significantly correlated (r were 0.74, 0.65, 0.70, all P<0.01) with a linear relationship (F were 195.04,120.29,156.37,all P<0.01).CM,rCT and CaD had relatively high concordance rates against the OP diagnosis gold standard (respectively 81.9%, 62.2% and 81.9%). CM and CaD had higher concordance rates than rCT,the difference being statistically significant(P<0.01),and by the CM less than 239.5 HU or CaD less than 10.9 mg/cm3standard, their sensitivities of diagnosing osteoporosis were respectively 86.0% and 84.0%,while the specificities,80.2% and 81.0%.After superimposing CM and CaD, the results did not improve the diagnosis efficiency of OP (pre-superposition diagnostic performance better than post-superposition (P<0.05). Conclusion The VNC technology on DECT can do both vertebral fractures diagnosis and osteoporosis assessment at the same time, thus optimizing the clinical examination process.

Objective To analyze the feasibility and efficacy of a deep convolutional neural network(DCNN)model based on chest CT images to evaluate bone mineral density(BMD).Methods A total of 1 048 health check subjects'2 096 central level images of lumbar 1 and 2 vertebral bodies were used for experiments and analysis in this retrospective study.According to the results of quanti-tative computed tomography(QCT)BMD measurement,the subjects were divided into three categories:normal,osteopenia,osteopo-rosis(OP).Herein,a DCNN segmentation model was constructed based on chest CT images[training set(n=1 096),tuning set(n=200),and test set(n=800)],the segmentation performance was evaluated using the Dice similarity coefficient(DSC)to com-pare the consistency with the manually sketched region of vertebral body.Then,the DCNN classification models 1(fusion feature construction of lumbar 1 and 2 vertebral bodies)and model 2(image feature construction of lumbar 1 alone)was developed based on the training set(n=530).Model performance was compared in a test set(n=418)by the receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve analysis.Results When the number of images in the training set(n=300)was adopted,the DSC value was 0.950 in the test set.The results showed that the sensitivity,specificity and area under the curve(AUC)of model 1 and model 2 in diagno-sing osteopenia and OP were 0.716,0.960,0.952;0.941,0.948,0.980;0.638,0.954,0.940;0.843,0.959,0.978,respectively.The AUC value of normal model 1 was higher than that of model 2(0.990 vs 0.983,P=0.033),while there was no significant difference in AUC values between osteopenia and OP(P=0.210,0.546).Conclusion A DCNN may have the potential to evaluate bone mass based on chest CT images,which is expected to become an effective tool for OP screening.