BACKGROUND

Mobile clinics offer crucial healthcare services, including X-ray examinations, to underserved communities. Minimizing image repeats in this setting is vital due to radiation exposure, patient inconvenience, and cost implications.

This study investigated the prevalence and causes of image repeat in conventional radiography performed within mobile clinics in the Philippines.

A retrospective review analyzed data from five mobile clinics located in two highly urbanized cities in the Philippines from July to December 2023). Radiology staff assessed image quality, with suboptimal images requiring retakes. Reasons for rejection were categorized.

Out of 871 radiographs taken, 118 (13.55%) were repeated. Vertebrae and pelvic girdle images had the highest repeat rates (33.33%). Positioning errors were the most common cause (44.07%), followed by underexposure and overexposure.

This study identified a concerning repeat rate (13.55%) for mobile X-rays, primarily due to improper patient positioning, particularly for specific body parts. Targeted training programs and stricter protocols for mobile clinic staff are needed. Radiography education should also emphasize these skills, potentially through collaboration with mobile clinic operators to ensure graduates are prepared for the unique challenges of this environment.

Basal cell carcinoma, the most common human malignancy, has a rare incidence of metastases ranging from 0.0028-0.55%. We report a case of a 74-year-old female with a 10-year history of an enlarging anterior thigh nodule. Wide resection and inguinal lymph node dissection revealed an infiltrative basal cell carcinoma with lymph node metastasis due to the presence of basaloid cells, limited peripheral palisading, loose stroma, extensive spread, perineural invasion and immunoreactivity to p40, BerEP4, and GATA3.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the effectiveness of O-arm navigation and C-arm navigation for guiding percutaneous long sacroiliac screws in treatment of Denis type Ⅱ sacral fractures. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted on clinical data of the 46 patients with Denis type Ⅱ sacral fractures between April 2021 and October 2022. Among them, 19 patients underwent O-arm navigation assisted percutaneous long sacroiliac screw fixation (O-arm navigation group), and 27 patients underwent C-arm navigation assisted percutaneous long sacroiliac screw fixation (C-arm navigation group). There was no significant difference in gender, age, causes of injuries, Tile classification of pelvic fractures, combined injury, the interval from injury to operation between the two groups ( P>0.05). The intraoperative preparation time, the placement time of each screw, the fluoroscopy time of each screw during placement, screw position accuracy, the quality of fracture reduction, and fracture healing time were recorded and compared, postoperative complications were observed. Pelvic function was evaluated by Majeed score at last follow-up. RESULTS: All operations were completed successfully, and all incisions healed by first intention. Compared to the C-arm navigation group, the O-arm navigation group had shorter intraoperative preparation time, placement time of each screw, and fluoroscopy time, with significant differences ( P<0.05). There was no significant difference in screw position accuracy and the quality of fracture reduction ( P>0.05). There was no nerve or vascular injury during screw placed in the two groups. All patients in both groups were followed up, with the follow-up time of 6-21 months (mean, 12.0 months). Imaging re-examination showed that both groups achieved bony healing, and there was no significant difference in fracture healing time between the two groups ( P>0.05). During follow-up, there was no postoperative complications, such as screw loosening and breaking or loss of fracture reduction. At last follow-up, there was no significant difference in pelvic function between the two groups ( P>0.05). CONCLUSION Compared with the C-arm navigation, the O-arm navigation assisted percutaneous long sacroiliac screws for the treatment of Denis typeⅡsacral fractures can significantly shorten the intraoperative preparation time, screw placement time, and fluoroscopy time, improve the accuracy of screw placement, and obtain clearer navigation images.
Humans ; Fracture Fixation, Internal/methods* ; Retrospective Studies ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; Bone Screws ; Surgery, Computer-Assisted ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Spinal Fractures/surgery* ; Fractures, Bone/surgery* ; Pelvic Bones/injuries* ; Postoperative Complications ; Neck Injuries

Objective:To explore the characteristics and therapeutic strategies of Pott's puffy tumor（PPT）. Methods:The clinical data of two patients with PPT were retrospectively analyzed and combined with the literature, focusing on the comprehensive analysis of perioperative diagnosis and treatment strategies. Both patients underwent muti-disciplinary treatment, including timely administration of sufficient antibiotics capable of penetrating the blood-brain barrier. Early removal of PPT lesions was performed using a combined internal and external approach under nasal endoscopic guidance. Results:After standardized perioperative management, the symptoms of the two patients were completely relieved, with no recurrence after one=year follow=up. Postoperative complications such as frontal pain, numbness, local depression, or scar hyperplasiawere not present. Conclusion:PPT, being relatively rare and severe, requires careful attention. Key strategies for standardized perioperative management include multi-disciplinary consultation, timely and adequate antibiotic administration, and surgical intervention using a combined intranasal and extranasal endoscopic approach for lesion removal.
Humans ; Pott Puffy Tumor/complications* ; Retrospective Studies ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Endoscopy/adverse effects* ; Postoperative Complications ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/therapeutic use* ; Frontal Sinusitis/complications*

Humans ; Female ; Pregnancy ; Placenta ; Lung/pathology* ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Humans ; Meningioma/surgery* ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Meningeal Neoplasms/surgery*

BACKGROUND: Patients with mass-forming pancreatitis (MFP) or pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) presented similar clinical symptoms, but required different treatment approaches and had different survival outcomes. This meta-analysis aimed to compare the diagnostic performance of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT) in differentiating MFP from PDAC. METHODS: A literature search was performed in the PubMed, EMBASE (Ovid), Cochrane Library (CENTRAL), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Weipu (VIP), and WanFang databases to identify original studies published from inception to August 20, 2021. Studies reporting the diagnostic performances of CEUS and CECT for differentiating MFP from PDAC were included. The meta-analysis was performed with Stata 15.0 software. The outcomes included the pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (+LR), negative likelihood ratio (-LR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curves of CEUS and CECT. Meta-regression was conducted to investigate heterogeneity. Bayesian network meta-analysis was conducted to indirectly compare the overall diagnostic performance. RESULTS: Twenty-six studies with 2115 pancreatic masses were included. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of CEUS for MFP were 82% (95% confidence interval [CI], 73%-88%; I2  = 0.00%) and 95% (95% CI, 90%-97%; I2  = 63.44%), respectively; the overall +LR, -LR, and DOR values were 15.12 (95% CI, 7.61-30.01), 0.19 (95% CI, 0.13-0.29), and 78.91 (95% CI, 30.94-201.27), respectively; and the area under the SROC curve (AUC) was 0.90 (95% CI, 0.87-92). However, the overall sensitivity and specificity of CECT were 81% (95% CI, 75-85%; I2  = 66.37%) and 94% (95% CI, 90-96%; I2  = 74.87%); the overall +LR, -LR, and DOR values were 12.91 (95% CI, 7.86-21.20), 0.21 (95% CI, 0.16-0.27), and 62.53 (95% CI, 34.45-113.51), respectively; and, the SROC AUC was 0.92 (95% CI, 0.90-0.94). The overall diagnostic accuracy of CEUS was comparable to that of CECT for the differential diagnosis of MFP and PDAC (relative DOR 1.26, 95% CI [0.42-3.83], P  > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS CEUS and CECT have comparable diagnostic performance for differentiating MFP from PDAC, and should be considered as mutually complementary diagnostic tools for suspected focal pancreatic lesions.
Humans ; Contrast Media ; Bayes Theorem ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed/methods* ; Pancreatic Neoplasms/diagnostic imaging* ; Carcinoma, Pancreatic Ductal/diagnostic imaging* ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Pancreatitis/diagnostic imaging* ; Ultrasonography/methods*

BACKGROUND: The effect of arteriosclerotic intracranial arterial vessel wall enhancement (IAVWE) on downstream collateral flow found in vessel wall imaging (VWI) is not clear. Regardless of the mechanism underlying IAVWE on VWI, damage to the patient's nervous system caused by IAVWE is likely achieved by affecting downstream cerebral blood flow. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of arteriosclerotic IAVWE on downstream collateral flow. METHODS: The present study recruited 63 consecutive patients at the Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University from January 2021 to November 2021 with underlying atherosclerotic diseases and unilateral middle cerebral artery (MCA) M1-segment stenosis who underwent an magnetic resonance scan within 3 days of symptom onset. The patients were divided into 4 groups according to IAVWE and the stenosis ratio (Group 1, n = 17; Group 2, n = 19; Group 3, n = 13; Group 4, n = 14), and downstream collateral flow was analyzed using three-dimensional pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling (3D-pCASL) and RAPID software. The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores of the patients were also recorded. Two-factor multivariate analysis of variance using Pillai's trace was used as the main statistical method. RESULTS: No statistically significant difference was found in baseline demographic characteristics among the groups. IAVWE, but not the stenosis ratio, had a statistically significant significance on the late-arriving retrograde flow proportion (LARFP), hypoperfusion intensity ratio (HIR), and NIHSS scores ( F = 20.941, P <0.001, Pillai's trace statistic = 0.567). The between-subject effects test showed that IAVWE had a significant effect on the three dependent variables: LARFP ( R2 = 0.088, F = 10.899, P = 0.002), HIR ( R2 = 0.234, F = 29.354, P <0.001), and NIHSS ( R2 = 114.339, F = 33.338, P <0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Arteriosclerotic IAVWE significantly reduced downstream collateral flow and affected relevant neurological deficits. It was an independent factor affecting downstream collateral flow and NIHSS scores, which should be a focus of future studies. TRIAL REGISTRATION ChiCTR.org.cn, ChiCTR2100053661.
Humans ; Constriction, Pathologic/pathology* ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods* ; Middle Cerebral Artery/pathology* ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Objective To develop a CT-based weighted radiomic model that predicts tumor response to programmed death-1(PD-1)/PD-ligand 1(PD-L1)immunotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.Methods The patients with non-small cell lung cancer treated by PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitors in the Peking Union Medical College Hospital from June 2015 to February 2022 were retrospectively studied and classified as responders(partial or complete response)and non-responders(stable or progressive disease).Original radiomic features were extracted from multiple intrapulmonary lesions in the contrast-enhanced CT scans of the arterial phase,and then weighted and summed by an attention-based multiple instances learning algorithm.Logistic regression was employed to build a weighted radiomic scoring model and the radiomic score was then calculated.The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve(AUC)was used to compare the weighted radiomic scoring model,PD-L1 model,clinical model,weighted radiomic scoring + PD-L1 model,and comprehensive prediction model.Results A total of 237 patients were included in the study and randomized into a training set(n=165)and a test set(n=72),with the mean ages of(64±9)and(62±8)years,respectively.The AUC of the weighted radiomic scoring model reached 0.85 and 0.80 in the training set and test set,respectively,which was higher than that of the PD-L1-1 model(Z=37.30,P<0.001 and Z=5.69,P=0.017),PD-L1-50 model(Z=38.36,P<0.001 and Z=17.99,P<0.001),and clinical model(Z=11.40,P<0.001 and Z=5.76,P=0.016).The AUC of the weighted scoring model was not different from that of the weighted radiomic scoring + PD-L1 model and the comprehensive prediction model(both P>0.05).Conclusion The weighted radiomic scores based on pre-treatment enhanced CT images can predict tumor responses to immunotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
Humans ; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung/drug therapy* ; Lung Neoplasms/drug therapy* ; B7-H1 Antigen/therapeutic use* ; Retrospective Studies ; Programmed Cell Death 1 Receptor ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Immunotherapy

Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an acute respiratory infectious disease with strong contagiousness, strong variability, and long incubation period. The probability of misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis can be significantly decreased with the use of automatic segmentation of COVID-19 lesions based on computed tomography images, which helps doctors in rapid diagnosis and precise treatment. This paper introduced the level set generalized Dice loss function (LGDL) in conjunction with the level set segmentation method based on COVID-19 lesion segmentation network and proposed a dual-path COVID-19 lesion segmentation network (Dual-SAUNet++) to address the pain points such as the complex symptoms of COVID-19 and the blurred boundaries that are challenging to segment. LGDL is an adaptive weight joint loss obtained by combining the generalized Dice loss of the mask path and the mean square error of the level set path. On the test set, the model achieved Dice similarity coefficient of (87.81 ± 10.86)%, intersection over union of (79.20 ± 14.58)%, sensitivity of (94.18 ± 13.56)%, specificity of (99.83 ± 0.43)% and Hausdorff distance of 18.29 ± 31.48 mm. Studies indicated that Dual-SAUNet++ has a great anti-noise capability and it can segment multi-scale lesions while simultaneously focusing on their area and border information. The method proposed in this paper assists doctors in judging the severity of COVID-19 infection by accurately segmenting the lesion, and provides a reliable basis for subsequent clinical treatment.
Humans ; COVID-19/diagnostic imaging* ; Respiratory Rate ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed