This review presents an overview of previously reported non-invasive intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) measurement techniques. Each section covers the basic physical principles and methodology of the various measurement techniques, the experimental results, and the advantages and disadvantages of each method. The most promising non-invasive methods for IAP measurement are microwave reflectometry and ultrasound assessment, in combination with an applied external force.

xCT overexpression in cancer cells has been linked to tumor growth, metastasis and treatment resistance. Sulfasalazine (SSZ), an FDA-approved drug for the treatment of rheumatoid sarthritis, and inflammatory bowel diseases, has anticancer properties via inhibition of xCT, leading to the disruption of redox homeostasis. Since reactive oxygen species (ROS) are pivotal for the efficacy of radiotherapy (RT), elevated levels of ROS are associated with improved RT outcomes. In this study, the influence of SSZ treatment on the radiosensitivity of human colorectal cancer (CRC) cells was investigated. Our principal finding in human HCT116 and DLD-1 cells was that SSZ enhances the radiosensitivity of hypoxic CRC cells but does not alter the intrinsic radiosensitivity. The radiosensitizing effect was attributed to the depletion of glutathione and thioredoxin reductase levels. In turn, the reduction leads to excessive levels of ROS, increased DNA damage, and ferroptosis induction. Confirmation of these findings was performed in 3D models and in DLD-1 xenografts. Taken together, this study is a stepping stone for applying SSZ as a radiosensitizer in the clinic and confirms that xCT in cancer cells is a valid radiobiological target.

Dynamic computer tomography (CT) is an emerging modality to analyze in-vivo joint kinematics at the bone level, but it requires manual bone segmentation and, in some instances, landmark identification. The objective of this study is to present an automated workflow for the assessment of three-dimensional in vivo joint kinematics from dynamic musculoskeletal CT images. The proposed method relies on a multi-atlas, multi-label segmentation and landmark propagation framework to extract bony structures and detect anatomical landmarks on the CT dataset. The segmented structures serve as regions of interest for the subsequent motion estimation across the dynamic sequence. The landmarks are propagated across the dynamic sequence for the construction of bone embedded reference frames from which kinematic parameters are estimated. We applied our workflow on dynamic CT images obtained from 15 healthy subjects on two different joints: thumb base (n = 5) and knee (n = 10). The proposed method resulted in segmentation accuracies of 0.90 ± 0.01 for the thumb dataset and 0.94 ± 0.02 for the knee as measured by the Dice score coefficient. In terms of motion estimation, mean differences in cardan angles between the automated algorithm and manual segmentation, and landmark identification performed by an expert were below 1°. Intraclass correlation (ICC) between cardan angles from the algorithm and results from expert manual landmarks ranged from 0.72 to 0.99 for all joints across all axes. The proposed automated method resulted in reproducible and reliable measurements, enabling the assessment of joint kinematics using 4DCT in clinical routine.