Objective To compare the treatment effects and toxicity of late co urse accelerated hyperfractionation radiotherapy (LCAFR), LCAFR plus concurren t chemotherapy (LCAFR+C) and conventional fractionation radiotherapy(CFR) on esop hageal cancer. Methods 150 patients with squamous carcinoma of thoracic esophag us were divided randomly into three groups: 1.CFR group, patients were irradiate d 2.0?Gy/f, 5 times a week, to a total does of 60?Gy. 2. LCAFR group, patients wer e first irradiated with CFR to 30?Gy, then followed by 1.5?Gy/f bid, at more t han 6 hours' interval, to the total dose of 60?Gy. 3.LCAFR+C group: The radiotherap y technique was the same as the LCAFR group, but weekly 20 mg DDP and 500 mg 5-Fu wer e added simultaneously for 5 weeks. Results All three groups completed their tre atment course. Of CFR, LCAFR and LCAFR+C groups, the 1-,2-,3- and 4-year sur viva l rates were 54%, 30%, 18%, 18%; 76%, 56%, 44%, 42% and 82%, 62%, 50%, 44%. The 1-,2-,3- and 4-year local control rates were 40%, 32%, 26%, 24%; 72%, 60%, 5 6%, 54% and 78%, 66%, 60%, 56%, with obvious better results in the latter two groups (P0.05). The acute toxic effect was severer in the LCAFR+C g roup than in the other two, with the difference significant between the LCAFR+C and CFR group, bu t not between the LCAFR and CFR group. The tolerance of the patients to LCAFR wa s better than that of LCAFR+C group. There were no significant differences in la te complications and causes of death between the three groups. The main cause of death was local recurrence and uncontrolled primary disease, which were signifi cantly lower in the LCAFR and LCAFR+C groups than in the CFR group. Conclusions Both late course accelerated hyperfractionation radiotherapy and late course acc elera ted hyperfractionation radiotherapy plus chemotherapy can significantly improve the local control and survival of esophageal cancer, but the latter has increase d toxicity. Concurrent small dose chemotherapy can not lowered the remote metas tatic rate.

Objective The application value of CTA for BA in interventional theray of lung cancer.Methods 15 patients with lung cancers including central type(13 cases)and peripheral type(2 cases) proven by pathology were analyzed prospectively.They were all examined with contrast enhanced.MDCT and the data were sent to the workstation and reconstructed with thin section multi-planar reformation(MPR),maximum intensity projection(MIP)and volume rendering(VR).Results All cases of central type lung cancer were supplied by the bronchial artery including two by the bronchial artery and intercostal artery,clearly demonstrated on the scans with the origin,branches and routes.One case of peripheral lung cancer was supplied by the bronchial artery and the other could not find the definite supplying artery.Conclusions CTA of BA for lung cancer can provide the accurate localization and other reference data for interventional therapy.

Objective To evaluate the activation of the visual cortex in patients with primary openangle glaucoma (POAG) and to explore whether the neuronal activity corresponds with retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and cup-to-disc (C/D) values.Methods Twenty-five patients and 25 gender-and agematched healthy volunteers were studied.Blood oxygenation level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD-fMRI) and three-dimensional brain volume imaging (3 D BRAVO) sequences were obtained using 3 T MR imaging system.A full-screen black-white shift checkerboard was used for visual stimulus during the fMRI experiment and was performed on each eye of all subjects using a visual-acoustical system.All acquired data were postprocessed and analyzed by statistical parametric mapping (SPM).After analysis,individual activated mapping,intra-group mean activated mapping,and inter-group variant mapping were observed.The voxel number,intensity,and Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) coordinate of the activated clusters were recorded.The Xjviewer software was utilized to obtain activated voxel numbers in occipital lobe.A Pearson correlated test was performed to test the correlation between the number of activated voxels and RNFL,C/D and Hodapp-Anderson-Parrish (HAP) clinical stage.Results Intra-group mean activated mappings of both patients and volunteers showed obvious activation in bilateral occipital lobes.As compared with healthy volunteers,the POAG patients exhibited statistically significantly decreased activation in bilateral occipital lobes,left hippocampus,and left cerebellum,along with lower mean RNFL [(71.56 ±21.54) i m versus (111.88 ± 9.96) μm] and higher C/D values (0.71 ± 0.18 versus 0.36 ± 0.08 ; t value was respectively-10.901 and 11.643,P ＜ 0.05).The number of activated voxels in the occipital lobes of POAG patients did not correlate with RNFL,C/D and HAP clinical stage of the corresponding eye (r value was respectively 0.157,-0.113 and-0.242,P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions fMRI demonstrated differences in visual cortex activation in POAG patients relative to healthy volunteers,suggesting it might be a promising complementary method for diagnosing glaucoma.However,fMRI findings did not correlate with POAG extent,as measured by RNFL and C/D values.Ophthalmological examination remains to play an important role in the evaluation of open-angle glaucoma.

Phased array coils (multiple receiver coil systems) have been extensively used for acquisition of MR images owing to their ability of increasing SNR, extending field-of-view (FOV), and reducing acquisition time. But the SOS algorithm,which is main method for phased array image reconstruction,will cause inhomogeneity in reconstructed image. A regularized least square method for phased array image combination is proposed in this paper. In the method, an additional reference scan is performed in advance. By using the reference scan, coil sensitivity map can be acquired, and image reconstructed from reference scan can be used as reference data in the regulation term. Experiments showed that the image uniformity was greatly improved by this method with scanning phantom and volunteer.
Algorithms ; Humans ; Image Enhancement ; methods ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; methods