Lung cancer is still one of the most common malignant tumors in the world. With the increase of its incidence and the development of medical technology, the overall survival of lung cancer patients has significantly extended compared to before. The incidence of brain and meningeal metastases from lung cancer has also been rising year by year, but patients with brain and meningeal metastases from lung cancer have a poor prognosis and a very high mortality rate, and the diagnosis is mainly based on computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other imaging examinations. However, the imaging features are diverse and the specificity is low, which makes it easy to be misdiagnosed and missed. Therefore, accurately identifying brain and meningeal metastases and timely targeted treatment is crucial for improving patient prognosis. This paper analyzed the diagnosis and treatment of a case of lung cancer with no obvious recurrence and metastasis in nearly 7-year long-term follow-up after radical lung cancer surgery, but the patient with abnormal behavior, impaired consciousness and epilepsy in the past 5 months, and multiple punctate calcifications in the brain found by head CT and MRI. This paper consider that the patient's mental and behavioral symptoms were caused by brain and meningeal metastasis of lung cancer after excluding infectious disease and ineffective treatment of autoimmune encephalitis, and further pathological biopsy and genetic detection confirmed the diagnosis of metastatic lung adenocarcinoma with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) L858R gene mutation, and the patient's symptoms were significantly improved after targeted therapy by Osimertinib. This paper also searched the relevant literatures of brain calcifications in databases such as China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang, UpToDate, PubMed, etc., and found that intracerebral calcifications exist in a variety of diseases, including infectious, genetic and neurodegenerative diseases, vascular diseases, metabolic diseases and tumors. However, brain calcification in brain and meningeal metastases are often underestimated, and the consequent risk is misdiagnosis and delayed treatment. Therefore, brain and meningeal metastases manifested as brain calcification should not be ignored in patients with a history of previous tumors.
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Humans ; Lung Neoplasms/pathology* ; Brain Neoplasms/diagnostic imaging* ; Meningeal Neoplasms/diagnostic imaging* ; Calcinosis/diagnostic imaging* ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging

OBJECTIVE: To summarize and analyze the clinical characteristics of children with basal ganglia germinoma and to improve the level of early clinical diagnosis. METHODS: The clinical data of children diagnosed with basal ganglia germinoma admitted to the Pediatric Surgery Ward of Peking University First Hospital from January 2013 to December 2020 were retrospectively analyzed, and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the clinical characteristics of children with basal ganglia germinoma. RESULTS: A total of 30 patients were included in the study, 28 were male, 2 were female, the mean age at onset was (9.7±2.2) years, the median disease duration was 7 months, 27 had unilateral disease, and 3 had bilateral disease. The clinical manifestations were decreased limb muscle strength, cognitive function disorders, polydipsia, precocious puberty, intracranial hypertension, dysphonia and swallowing dysfunction. The serum and cerebrospinal fluid tumor marker alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) were normal in the 30 patients, and the serum and cerebrospinal fluid tumor marker β-human chorionic gonadotropin (β-HCG) were normal in 8 patients.The serum β-HCG was normal in 11 patients but the cerebrospinal fluid β-HCG was slightly elevated, and the serum and cerebrospinal fluid β-HCG were slightly elevated in 11 patients. A total of 33 lesions with irregular shapes were found by imaging examination, including 15 (45.5%) patchy lesions, 10 (30.3%) patchy lesions, and 8 (24.2%) round-like high-density lesions. Tumors showed obvious high-density shadows on computed tomography (CT) scan. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of the tumors showed low or isointensity on T1WI and isointensity on T2WI, accompanied by mild peritumoral edema, hemispheric atrophy, cerebral peduncle atrophy, calcification, cystic degeneration, ventricular dilatation and wallerian degeneration. On contrast-enhanced scans, the tumor showed no enhancement or heterogeneous enhancement. CONCLUSION The main age of onset of germ cell tumors in the basal ganglia in children is about 10 years old, and males are absolutely dominant. The clinical features and imaging manifestations have certain characteristics. With both combined, the early diagnosis of germ cell tumors in the basal ganglia can be improved.
Atrophy/pathology* ; Basal Ganglia/pathology* ; Biomarkers, Tumor ; Brain Neoplasms/diagnostic imaging* ; Child ; Chorionic Gonadotropin, beta Subunit, Human ; Female ; Germinoma/pathology* ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Neoplasms, Germ Cell and Embryonal ; Retrospective Studies

To explore the feasibility and efficacy of artificial neural network for differentiating high-grade glioma and low-grade glioma using image information.
 Methods: A total of 130 glioma patients with confirmed pathological diagnosis were selected retrospectively from 2012 to 2017. Forty one imaging features were extracted from each subjects based on 2-dimension magnetic resonance T1 weighted imaging with contrast-enhancement. An artificial neural network model was created and optimized according to the performance of feature selection. The training dataset was randomly selected half of the whole dataset, and the other half dataset was used to verify the performance of the neural network for glioma grading. The training-verification process was repeated for 100 times and the performance was averaged.
 Results: A total of 5 imaging features were selected as the ultimate input features for the neural network. The mean accuracy of the neural network for glioma grading was 90.32%, with a mean sensitivity at 87.86% and a mean specificity at 92.49%. The area under the curve of receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.9486.
 Conclusion: As a technique of artificial intelligence, neural network can reach a relatively high accuracy for the grading of glioma and provide a non-invasive and promising computer-aided diagnostic process for the pre-operative grading of glioma.
Brain Neoplasms ; diagnostic imaging ; pathology ; Glioma ; diagnostic imaging ; pathology ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Neoplasm Grading ; Neural Networks, Computer ; ROC Curve ; Retrospective Studies ; Sensitivity and Specificity

PURPOSE: We aimed to investigate the effectiveness of ferritin as a contrast agent and a potential reporter gene for tracking tumor cells or macrophages in mouse cancer models. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Adenoviral human ferritin heavy chain (Ad-hFTH) was administrated to orthotopic glioma models and subcutaneous colon cancer mouse models using U87MG and HCT116 cells, respectively. Brain MR images were acquired before and daily for up to 6 days after the intracranial injection of Ad-hFTH. In the HCT116 tumor model, MR examinations were performed before and at 6, 24, and 48 h after intratumoral injection of Ad-hFTH, as well as before and every two days after intravenous injection of ferritin-labeled macrophages. The contrast effect of ferritin in vitro was measured by MR imaging of cell pellets. MRI examinations using a 7T MR scanner comprised a T1-weighted (T1w) spin-echo sequence, T2-weighted (T2w) relaxation enhancement sequence, and T2*-weighted (T2*w) fast low angle shot sequence. RESULTS: Cell pellet imaging of Ad-hFTH in vitro showed a strong negatively enhanced contrast in T2w and T2*w images, presenting with darker signal intensity in high concentrations of Fe. T2w images of glioma and subcutaneous HCT116 tumor models showed a dark signal intensity around or within the Ad-hFTH tumor, which was distinct with time and apparent in T2*w images. After injection of ferritin-labeled macrophages, negative contrast enhancement was identified within the tumor. CONCLUSION: Ferritin could be a good candidate as an endogenous MR contrast agent and a potential reporter gene that is capable of maintaining cell labeling stability and cellular safety.
Animals ; Brain Neoplasms/*diagnostic imaging/pathology ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Cell Tracking/*methods ; Colonic Neoplasms/*diagnostic imaging/pathology ; *Contrast Media/administration & dosage ; Disease Models, Animal ; Female ; *Ferritins/administration & dosage ; Genes, Reporter ; Glioma/*diagnostic imaging/pathology ; Humans ; Injections, Intravenous ; Macrophages ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging/*methods ; Male ; Mice ; Neoplasm Transplantation ; Skin Neoplasms/*diagnostic imaging/pathology ; Time Factors

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the study is to reveal the association of cytogenetic compltyexi and peritumoral edema volume (PTEV) and its prognostic significance in high-grade astrocytoma patients by culturing patient tumor cells. METHODS: Twenty-seven high-grade astrocytoma patients were divided into three groups according to karyotype complexity: normal, non-complex karyotype (NCK), and complex karyotype (CK). Endothelial growth factor receptor (EGFR) amplification was detected by FISH, and its association with chromosome 7 abnormalities was analyzed. Mean PTEV of each group was compared by ANOVA to evaluate the relationship between PTEV and cytogenetic complexity. RESULTS: The PTEV of patients in normal (n=6), NCK (n=8), and CK (n=13) groups were 24.52±17.73, 34.26±35.04, and 86.31±48.7 cm3, respectively (P=0.005). Ten out of 11 patients with EGFR amplification showed abnormalities in chromosome 7. The mean PTEV of EGFR-amplified and non-amplified groups were 80.4±53.7 and 41.3±37.9 cm3, respectively (P=0.035). The average survival of patients with PTEV less than 90 cm3 was 30.52±26.11 months, while in patients with PTEVs over or equal to 90 cm3, it was 10.83±5.53 months (P=0.007). CONCLUSIONS: The results show an association of complex karyotype with the PTEV of high-grade astrocytoma. EGFR amplification plays a significant role in the formation of peritumoral edema, causing PTEV to increase, which is related with survival. This implies that cytogenetic karyotype can be applied as a prognostic factor.
Adult ; Aged ; Astrocytoma/diagnostic imaging/mortality/*pathology ; Brain Neoplasms/diagnostic imaging/mortality/*pathology ; Chromosome Aberrations ; Chromosomes, Human, Pair 7 ; Edema/diagnostic imaging/pathology ; Female ; Humans ; In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence ; Kaplan-Meier Estimate ; Karyotype ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neoplasm Grading ; Prognosis ; Receptors, Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor/metabolism ; Tumor Cells, Cultured ; Young Adult

Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers in women worldwide. The outcome of patients with metastatic cervical cancer is poor. We reviewed the relevant literature concerning the treatment and diagnosis of metastatic cervical cancer. There are two types of metastasis related to different treatments and survival rates: hematogenous metastasis and lymphatic metastasis. Patients with hematogenous metastasis have a higher risk of death than those with lymphatic metastasis. In terms of diagnosis, fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) and PET-computed tomography are effective tools for the evaluation of distant metastasis. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy and subsequent chemotherapy are well-tolerated and efficient for lymphatic metastasis. As for lung metastasis, chemotherapy and/or surgery are valuable treatments for resistant, recurrent metastatic cervical cancer and chemoradiotherapy may be the optimal choice for stage IVB cervical cancer. Chemotherapy and bone irradiation are promising for bone metastasis. A better survival is achieved with multimodal therapy. Craniotomy or stereotactic radiosurgery is an optimal choice combined with radiotherapy for solitary brain metastases. Chemotherapy and palliative brain radiation may be considered for multiple brain metastases and other organ metastases.
Bone Neoplasms/secondary/therapy ; Brain Neoplasms/secondary/therapy ; Chemoradiotherapy ; Female ; Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms/secondary/therapy ; Lymphatic Metastasis ; Positron-Emission Tomography ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms/diagnostic imaging/*pathology/therapy

Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers in women worldwide. The outcome of patients with metastatic cervical cancer is poor. We reviewed the relevant literature concerning the treatment and diagnosis of metastatic cervical cancer. There are two types of metastasis related to different treatments and survival rates: hematogenous metastasis and lymphatic metastasis. Patients with hematogenous metastasis have a higher risk of death than those with lymphatic metastasis. In terms of diagnosis, fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) and PET-computed tomography are effective tools for the evaluation of distant metastasis. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy and subsequent chemotherapy are well-tolerated and efficient for lymphatic metastasis. As for lung metastasis, chemotherapy and/or surgery are valuable treatments for resistant, recurrent metastatic cervical cancer and chemoradiotherapy may be the optimal choice for stage IVB cervical cancer. Chemotherapy and bone irradiation are promising for bone metastasis. A better survival is achieved with multimodal therapy. Craniotomy or stereotactic radiosurgery is an optimal choice combined with radiotherapy for solitary brain metastases. Chemotherapy and palliative brain radiation may be considered for multiple brain metastases and other organ metastases.
Bone Neoplasms/secondary/therapy ; Brain Neoplasms/secondary/therapy ; Chemoradiotherapy ; Female ; Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms/secondary/therapy ; Lymphatic Metastasis ; Positron-Emission Tomography ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms/diagnostic imaging/*pathology/therapy

Schwannomas are the most common benign nerve sheath tumors originating in Schwann cells. With special conditions like neurofibromatosis type 2 or entity called schwannomatosis, patients develop multiple schwannomas. But in clinical setting, distinguishing schwannomatosis from neurofibromatosis type 2 is challengeable. We describe 58-year-old male who presented with severe neuropathic pain, from schwannomatosis featuring multiple schwannomas of spine and trunk, and underwent surgical treatment. We demonstrate his radiologic and clinical findings, and discuss about important clinical features of this condition. To confirm schwannomatosis, we performed brain magnetic resonance imaging, and took his familial history. Staged surgery was done for pathological confirmation and relief of the pain. Schwannomatosis and neurofibromatosis type 2 are similar but different disease. There are diagnostic hallmarks of these conditions, including familial history, pathology, and brain imaging. Because of different prognosis, the two diseases must be distinguished, so diagnostic tests that are mentioned above should be performed in caution.
Brain ; Diagnostic Tests, Routine ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Nerve Sheath Neoplasms ; Neuralgia ; Neurilemmoma* ; Neurofibromatosis 2 ; Neuroimaging ; Pathology ; Prognosis ; Schwann Cells ; Spine*

Tomotherapy plans were produced using a combination of field widths (1 cm, 2.5 cm and 5 cm) and pitches (0.15, 0.30, and 0.45) for seven patients with brain metastases from lung cancer, the plans were compared with dosimetric parameters, protection of organs at risk (OAR) dose and treatment times. All plans were defined that CTV with 30Gy and GTV 50 Gy by ten fraction synchronously. The results showed that the mean dose and CI for GTV was statistical difference (P = 0.002 1, P = 0.012 8), OARs were within the normal range, the treatment time increased inversely proportional to the jaw width, but had lesser impact on the pitch. This study showed plans produced with 5 cm jaw was an effective method for patients with brain metastases from lung cancer.
Aged ; Brain Neoplasms ; diagnostic imaging ; secondary ; Female ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms ; pathology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Radiotherapy, Intensity-Modulated ; methods ; Tomography, Spiral Computed

PURPOSE: Single dose gadolinium (Gd) enhanced fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) is helpful for visualizing superficial parenchymal metastases. However, the usefulness of FLAIR with a higher dose of Gd is uncertain. The aim of our study was two-folds: first, to prove that the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of small brain metastases is higher than large brain metastases on double-dose (DD) enhanced FLAIR and, second, to explore the added value of DD Gd enhanced FLAIR in relation to T1 GRE for evaluating small brain metastases. MATERIALS AND METHODS: For the first purpose, 50 pairs of small (2 mmbrain metastases (diameter >5 mm) were included. The difference in the SNR and contrast ratio (CR) between small and large metastases on DD Gd-enhanced 3D T2 FLAIR was compared by Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. For the second purpose, a total of 404 small metastases were included. The diagnostic sensitivities between 3D T1 gradient echo (GRE) alone and combined results of 3D T1 GRE and 3D T2 FLAIR were compared with McNemar test. RESULTS: The SNR and CR of small brain metastases were significantly higher than those of large brain metastases (p<0.001). In qualitative analysis, the diagnostic sensitivities for small brain metastases were significantly higher for 3D T1 GRE plus 3D T2 FLAIR than 3D T1 GRE alone regardless of scan time (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Small brain metastases showed higher signal intensity than large brain metastases on the DD Gd enhanced 3D T2 FLAIR images. DD Gd enhanced 3D T2 FLAIR imaging may have a complementary role to 3D T1 GRE for evaluating small brain metastases.
Adult ; Aged ; Brain Neoplasms/*pathology ; Contrast Media/administration & dosage/*diagnostic use ; Female ; Gadolinium/administration & dosage/*diagnostic use ; Humans ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging/*methods ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Retrospective Studies ; Signal-To-Noise Ratio