OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the influence of fewer courses and prolonged intervals of chemotherapy on survival rate of advanced non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated by sequential chemo-radiation therapy combined with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). METHODS: From Jan. 2000 to Dec. 2001, 54 untreated advanced NSCLC patients (2 stage IIIa, 18 stage IIIb, 34 stage IV) were treated by sequential chemo-radiation therapy combined with TCM. The courses of chemotherapy were reduced and the intervals of chemotherapy were longer than that of the standard regimen. The efficacy and survival rate were documented and the prognostic factors were analyzed. RESULTS: Complete remission (CR) was observed in 1 case and partial remission (PR) in 20 cases. The overall objective response rate was 40.4%. Median survival was 15.3 months, 1-, 2- and 3-year survival rate were 53.7%, 28.9% and 9.6% respectively. The median survival of stage III and IV were 21.8 months and 12.5 months respectively. The 1-, 2-, and 3-year survival rates of stage III were 65.0%, 49.5%, 24.7% and that of stage IV were 47.0%, 23.3%, 0%, respectively. The quality of life was improved in most of the patients. Cox's proportional hazards regression showed that improved quality of life and treatment of TCM were the significant prognostic factors of overall survival. CONCLUSION: Chemotherapy and radiotherapy combined with TCM is beneficial to extending the interval of chemotherapy, improving the quality of life, and increasing the survival rate of advanced NSCLC patients.

Objective To explore the effect of D-galactose(D-gal) on murine pancreatic injury and its pathogenesis.Methods C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into control group and D-gal model group [D-gal 120 mg/(kg · d) for 42 days].On the 2nd day after drug injection completed,the peripheral blood was taken for measuring the level of fasting blood glucose(FBG) and fasting insulin(FINS);and then the organ index of pancreas was calculated by the ratio of pancreatic wet weight(mg) and mouse body weight(g);HE stain was routinely prepared to observe the histologic structure of pancreatic tissue;the TEM was used to analyze ultrastructural changes of pancreatic cells;the pancreatic frozen sections were prepared to test senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) and its relative absorbance(RA) of positively stained cells in the pancreatic islets;immunohistochemistry assays to study advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and its RA;pancreas tissue homogenate was made to detect the content of superoxide dismutase(SOD),malonaldehyde(MDA) and total antioxidant capacity(T-AOC).Results In D-gal group mice,the FBG increased(P＜0.05) and FINS reduced;pancreas wet weight and organ increased obviously (P＜0.01);light microscopic structure of the pancreas presented without typical pathologic change,however the single nucleated cell's area within the islet was increased significantly(P＜0.05);the pancreas endocrine and exocrine cells were showed the ultrastructure damaged and lipofuscin formation increased;the RA of positive pancreas cells in SA-β-gal staining increased(P＜0.05);the RA of AGEs positive regional expression markedly increased (P＜0.01);the content of SOD and T-AOC decreased (P ＜ 0.05),the content of MDA increased (P ＜ 0.01).Conclusions Aging mice model replicated by D-gal can cause the pancreatic injury,its mechanisms may be closely related to oxidative injury of pancreatic cells caused by D-gal.

OBJECTIVETo compare two methods for threshold selection in Huber regularization for low-dose computed tomography imaging.

METHODSHuber regularization-based iterative reconstruction (IR) approach was adopted for low-dose CT image reconstruction and the threshold of Huber regularization was selected based on global versus local edge-detecting operators.

RESULTSThe experimental results on the simulation data demonstrated that both of the two threshold selection methods in Huber regularization could yield remarkable gains in terms of noise suppression and artifact removal.

CONCLUSIONBoth of the two methods for threshold selection in Huber regularization can yield high-quality images in low-dose CT image iterative reconstruction.

OBJECTIVETo minimize of the radiation dose of cardiovascular CT angiography (CTA) imaging while preserving the image quality.

METHODSTo reduce the radiation dose in CTA imaging, the normal-dose scan induced non-local means (ndiNLM) algorithm was adapted for low-mAs scanned CTA image restoration by using the previous scanned high-quality image.

RESULTSQualitative and quantitative evaluations were carried out on both simulated phantom and clinical CTA scans in terms of accuracy and resolution properties. Compared to the original NLM algorithm, the ndiNLM method could achieve noticeable gains in terms of noise-induced artifacts suppression and enhanced structure preservation.

CONCLUSIONThe ndiNLM algorithm is a potential useful technique to reduce the radiation dose in CTA imaging.

OBJECTIVETo develop a computed tomography myocardial perfusion (CT-MP) deconvolution algorithm by incorporating high-dimension total variation (HDTV) regularization.

METHODSA perfusion deconvolution model was formulated for the low-dose CT-MPI data, followed by HDTV regularization to regularize the consistency of the solution by fusing the spatial correlation of the vascular structure and the temporal continuation of the blood flow signal.

RESULTSBoth qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted using XCAT and pig myocardial perfusion data to evaluate the present algorithm. The experimental results showed that this algorithm achieved hemodynamic parameter maps with better performances than the existing methods in terms of streak-artifacts suppression, noise-resolution tradeoff, and diagnosis structure preservation.

CONCLUSIONThe proposed algorithm can achieve high-quality hemodynamic parameter maps in low-dose CT-MPI.

Low-dose computed tomography (CT) reconstruction has become the focus of X-ray CT imaging study. In this paper, we propose an improved prior image constrained compressed sensing (PICCS) reconstruction approach. A penalized weighted least-squares approach was adopted to realize the line integral projection (sinogram) data restoration, followed by filtered back-projection (FBP) of the restored sinogram data for image reconstruction. Finally, the FBP image as the prior image was used for PICCS approach for dose reduction. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations were carried out with computer simulation. The results showed that the present approach yielded noticeable gains over the original PICCS approach for dose reduction in terms of noise-induced artifacts suppression and edge detail preservation.
Algorithms ; Computer Simulation ; Data Compression ; methods ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Least-Squares Analysis ; Phantoms, Imaging ; Radiation Dosage ; Signal-To-Noise Ratio ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; methods

Objective To explore the effect of applying surface neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) on the functioning of the upper esophageal sphincter (UES) using the high-resolution solid-state manometry.Methods Seventeen healthy volunteers were selected and given sham stimulation (SS),superior and inferior hyoid stimulation (SIHS),superior hyoid stimulation (SHS) or inferior hyoid stimulation (IHS) at a frequency of 80 Hz and the maximum tolerated level before swallowing.Any changes in the kinematics or biomechanics during swallowing and at rest were recorded using high-resolution solid-state manometry.One-factor repeated analysis of the measurement variance was used.Results A significant decrease in the duration of UES relaxation was observed in response to the electrical stimulation (compared with the sham stimulation).The UES's residual pressure showed a rising trend during electrical stimulation,especially in response to IHS,but the difference compared with SS was not significant.The UES's resting pressure during SIHS increased significantly compared with SS,but there was no significant difference between SHS and IHS in this respect.Conclusions Surface neuromuscular electrical stimulation applied to the neck can immediately change the functioning of the UES.NMES at the maximum tolerated intensity can reduce the duration of UES relaxation,which is important for dysphagia therapy and research.

Background: () (2n = 2x = 16) is genus of flowering plants belonging to the Gelsemicaeae family. Method: Here, a high-quality genome assembly using the Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) platform and high-throughput chromosome conformation capture techniques (Hi-C) were used. Results: A total of 56.11 Gb of raw GridION X5 platform ONT reads (6.23 Gb per cell) were generated. After filtering, 53.45 Gb of clean reads were obtained, giving 160 × coverage depth. The genome assemblies 335.13 Mb, close to the 338 Mb estimated by k-mer analysis, was generated with contig N50 of 10.23 Mb. The vast majority (99.2%) of the assembled sequence was anchored onto 8 pseudo-chromosomes. The genome completeness was then evaluated and 1338 of the 1440 conserved genes (92.9%) could be found in the assembly. Genome annotation revealed that 43.16% of the genome is composed of repetitive elements and 23.9% is composed of long terminal repeat elements. We predicted 26,768 protein-coding genes, of which 84.56% were functionally annotated. Conclusion The genomic sequences of could be a valuable source for comparative genomic analysis in the Gelsemicaeae family and will be useful for understanding the phylogenetic relationships of the indole alkaloid metabolism.

OBJECTIVE: To establish a cone beam computed tomography (ECBCT) system for high-resolution imaging of the extremities. METHODS: Based on three-dimensional X-Ray CT imaging and high-resolution flat plate detector technique, we constructed a physical model and a geometric model for ECBCT imaging, optimized the geometric calibration and image reconstruction methods, and established the scanner system. In the experiments, the pencil vase phantom, image quality (IQ) phantom and a swine feet were scanned using this imaging system to evaluate its effectiveness and stability. RESULTS: On the reconstructed image of the pencil vase phantom, the edges were well preserved with geometric calibrated parameters and no aliasing artifacts were observed. The reconstructed images of the IQ phantom showed a uniform distribution of the CT number, and the noise power spectra were stable in multiple scanning under the same condition. The reconstructed images of the swine feet had clearly displayed the bones with a good resolution. CONCLUSIONS The ECBCT system can be used for highresolution imaging of the extremities to provide important imaging information to assist in the diagnosis of bone diseases.
Algorithms ; Animals ; Artifacts ; Calibration ; Cone-Beam Computed Tomography ; instrumentation ; methods ; Equipment Design ; Extremities ; diagnostic imaging ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Phantoms, Imaging ; Radiographic Image Enhancement ; instrumentation ; methods ; Swine

OBJECTIVE: We propose a sparse-view helical CT iterative reconstruction algorithm based on projection of convex set tensor total generalized variation minimization (TTGV-POCS) to reduce the X-ray dose of helical CT scanning. METHODS: The three-dimensional volume data of helical CT reconstruction was viewed as the third-order tensor. The tensor generalized total variation (TTGV) was used to describe the structural sparsity of the three-dimensional image. The POCS iterative reconstruction framework was adopted to achieve a robust result of sparse-view helical CT reconstruction. The TTGV-POCS algorithm fully used the structural sparsity of first-order and second-order derivation and the correlation between the slices of helical CT image data to effectively suppress artifacts and noise in the image of sparse-view reconstruction and better preserve image edge information. RESULTS: The experimental results of XCAT phantom and patient scan data showed that the TTGVPOCS algorithm had better performance in reducing noise, removing artifacts and maintaining edges than the existing reconstruction algorithms. Comparison of the sparse-view reconstruction results of XCAT phantom data with 144 exposure views showed that the TTGV-POCS algorithm proposed herein increased the PSNR quantitative index by 9.17%-15.24% compared with the experimental comparison algorithm; the FSIM quantitative index was increased by 1.27%-9.30%. CONCLUSIONS The TTGV-POCS algorithm can effectively improve the image quality of helical CT sparse-view reconstruction and reduce the radiation dose of helical CT examination to improve the clinical imaging diagnosis.