Objective To investigate the status quo and the needs of medical imaging technicians(MITs)in the radiology department of secondary and tertiary hospitals in China,so as to provide references and support for the development of the medical imaging technology industry and the relevant policymaking by health administrative departments.Methods The questionnaire was developed by the Chinese Society of Imaging Technology.The radiology department of each hospital involved in the survey recommended one MIT to fill out the online questionnaire.The contents included:(a)the basic information of the hospital;(b)a general overview of the MITs in the hospital;(c)daily work;(d)career development and promotion;(e)research status and needs,etc.Differences in the number of MIT staff were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test and the chi-square test was used to compare the differences in the selected numbers of MITs in need between regions or between different levels of hospitals.Results In this investigation,valid questionnaires were finally obtained from a total of 5 403 hospitals in 31 provinces in China.The total number of MITs of the hospitals covered in the sample was 67 481.The number of MITs in each hospital was 9(5,16).The male-to-female ratio was 1.41:1.MITs who were 20 to 40 years old accounted for 78%.The proportions of MITs who had completed doctorate,master's,undergraduate,junior college,and technical secondary school or lower level education were 0.6%,3.3%,60.7%,30.8%,and 4.55%,respectively.The proportions of chief MITs,deputy chief MITs,supervisor MITs,primary MITs,assistant technician and those below were 1.0%,4.21%,22.1%,51.8%,and 20.9%,respectively.The overall professional satisfaction of MITs was good."Lack of opportunities for learning and communication"was quoted as the main problem MITs encountered in regard to improving their job-related competency.59.2% of the respondents had not published any academic papers in the past five years,and only 7.0% of the respondents had published in journals included in the Science Citation Index(SCI)in the past five years.Conclusion MITs in China are on average relatively young and the number of MITs has greatly increased.At this stage,more attention should be given to the cultivation of talents and continuing education of MITs and the construction of the discipline should be further strengthened,so as to provide strong support for the development of the medical imaging technology industry in China.

The registration of preoperative magnetic resonance (MR) images and intraoperative ultrasound (US) images is very important in the planning of brain tumor surgery and during surgery. Considering that the two-modality images have different intensity range and resolution, and the US images are degraded by lots of speckle noises, a self-similarity context (SSC) descriptor based on local neighborhood information was adopted to define the similarity measure. The ultrasound images were considered as the reference, the corners were extracted as the key points using three-dimensional differential operators, and the dense displacement sampling discrete optimization algorithm was adopted for registration. The whole registration process was divided into two stages including the affine registration and the elastic registration. In the affine registration stage, the image was decomposed using multi-resolution scheme, and in the elastic registration stage, the displacement vectors of key points were regularized using the minimum convolution and mean field reasoning strategies. The registration experiment was performed on the preoperative MR images and intraoperative US images of 22 patients. The overall error after affine registration was (1.57 ± 0.30) mm, and the average computation time of each pair of images was only 1.36 s; while the overall error after elastic registration was further reduced to (1.40 ± 0.28) mm, and the average registration time was 1.53 s. The experimental results show that the proposed method has prominent registration accuracy and high computational efficiency.
Humans ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional/methods* ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods* ; Ultrasonography/methods* ; Algorithms ; Surgery, Computer-Assisted/methods*

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of the combination of atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation and left atrial appendage closure (LAAC) on cardiac function and the success rate of AF ablation. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the data of 56 patients with AF undergoing a one-stop procedure for AF ablation and LAAC in our hospital between May, 2015 and May, 2019. Propensity score matching (PSM) at the ratio of 1:1 was used to select 56 control patients undergoing AF ablation at high risk of stroke, for matching with the hybrid procedure group. The perioperative complications, thromboembolic events, recurrence of atrial arrhythmia and cardiac function were compared between the groups. RESULTS: The two groups of patients were comparable for age, gender, BMI, duration and type of AF, concomitant diseases, CHA2DS2-VASc and HAS-BLED scores ( CONCLUSIONS The combination of AF ablation and LAAC is safe but does not improve the success rate of AF ablation. The one-stop procedure can improve cardiac function of the patients, but AF ablation alone can achieve better improvement of cardiac function.
Atrial Appendage/surgery* ; Atrial Fibrillation/surgery* ; Catheter Ablation ; Humans ; Retrospective Studies ; Treatment Outcome

OBJECTIVES: To explore the method and significance of prenatal counseling in cardiac surgery for fetal congenital heart disease (CHD). METHODS: The prenatal counseling should be provided by experienced CHD experts. The preliminary clinical diagnosis based on relevant data was carried out, the prognosis risk for fetal CHD was graded, and the pathophysiological process and potential hazards of the disease were analyzed. The current condition of CHD in the treatment plan, the long-term quality of life, and the special requirements of parturition in place, period and mode were described. A reliable follow-up system of the fetuses was established, the diagnosis after delivery was verified, and surgical treatment was carried out timely. RESULTS: From January 2016 to December 2018, 225 parents with fetal CHD received prenatal counseling, including 60 fetuses (26.7%) with simple CHD and 165 (73.3%) with complex CHD, among which 59 cases (98.3%) and 93 cases (56.4%) decided to continue the pregnancy, respectively. During the follow-up, 118 fetuses were born, of which 66 infants received surgical treatment within 6 months after birth, 63 infants (95.5%) recovered and 3 infants (4.5%) died. The rest 52 infants continued to be followed up. CONCLUSIONS The prenatal counseling for fetal CHD can provide the parents a comprehensive medical information about CHD, which is beneficial to making appropriate pregnancy decisions, and can turn the fetuses from unreasonable birth and passive treatment to selective birth and active treatment in CHD.
Cardiac Surgical Procedures ; Counseling ; Female ; Fetus ; Heart Defects, Congenital ; surgery ; Humans ; Pregnancy ; Prenatal Diagnosis ; Quality of Life ; Ultrasonography, Prenatal

Objective To investigate the value of "one-stop" scanning of coronary and head and neck CTA in patients with normal body mass index (18 kg/m2 ≤ BMI ≤ 25 kg/m2) using low tube voltage (80 kVp).Methods In a retrospective analysis 80 patients with normal body mass index who had completed "one-stop" scanning of coronary and head and neck CTA were divided into A and B groups according to different scanning method,and 40 consecutive cases were selected in each group.Scanning parameters of group A and group B were tube voltage 80 kV,coronary CTA tube current 550 mA,head and neck CTA tube current 500 mA,and tube voltage 100 kV,coronary CTA tube current 450 mA,head and neck CTA tube current 400 mA separately.Subjective evaluation and objective evaluation were performed on the image quality of the two groups.CT values of coronary artery and head and neck CTA trunk branch vessel,contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR),image noise (SD) and effective dose between the two groups were compared.Results The image quality of both groups met the diagnostic requirements,and there was no statistically significant difference in subjective scores between two groups (P＞0.05).The CT values of coronary arteries,the main branches of the head and neck (the common carotid artery,the internal carotid artery) and SD of head and neck CTA were significantly different between two groups (t=4.737,6.552,3.359,2.165,2.685,4.617,P＜0.05).There was no statistically significant difference in SD of coronary CTA,CT values and CNR between head and neck vessels (middle cerebral artery) in group A and group B (P＞0.05).The effective dose of coronary CTA in group A (1.16±0.20) mSy was reduced by 51.1％ than that in group B (2.37±0.77) mSv.The effective dose of head and neck CTA in group A (0.37±0.03) mSv was reduced by 47.9％ than that in group B (0.71 ± 0.17) mSv.Conclusions The image quality with subjective evaluation met the diagnostic requirements when using a low-tube voltage for "one-stop"scanning of coronary and head and neck CTA.The CNR values were basically consistent with the conventional scanning method,and the patient effective dose was reduced by about 50％.