A known history of diabetes and ambient hyperglycaemia were independent predictors for death and morbidity in SARS patients. Metabolic control may improve the prognosis of SARS patients.

BackgroundThe novel H7N9 virus causes severe illness, including pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome, with high rates of mortality. We investigated the association of initial radiologic characteristics obtained at admission with clinical outcomes in patients with avian influenza H7N9 pneumonia.MethodsDemographics, comorbidities, clinical findings, radiologic appearance and scores of the affected lung parenchyma were compared between survivor group (n = 15) and mortality group (n = 7). Two radiologic scores were calculated, one using chest radiography and one using CT. Follow-up CT scans at discharge were analyzed in 12 patients of the survival group.ResultsAll the patients in mortality group developed acute respiratory distress syndrome and required mechanical ventilation, while in the survival group 33% (5/15) developed acute respiratory distress syndrome (P<0.05) and 27% (4/15) required mechanical ventilation (P<0.05). The mean radiographic and CT scores of the mortality group were 50% higher compared to the survival group (P<0.05). ROC analysis revealed an area under curve of 0.738 for the radiographic score with an optimal cutoff value of a score of 19 for prediction of mortality, with a sensitivity of 71% and a specificity of 67%, and an area under curve of 0.833 for the CT score with an optimal cutoff value of a CT score of 21 for prediction of mortality, with a sensitivity of 86% and a specificity of 73%. The mean CT score of the affected lung parenchyma at discharge was 30% lower than the initial CT examination (P<0.05).ConclusionHigh initial radiologic score is associated with mortality in patients with avian influenza H7N9 pneumonia.

Biopsy has been used to diagnose thoracic diseases for more than a century. Percutaneous needle biopsy plays a crucial role in the diagnosis, staging, and treatment planning for tumors in the lungs, thoracic wall, hilum, and mediastinum. With the continuous improvement in imaging techniques, the range of clinical applications for percutaneous needle biopsy is also expanding. It has become important to improve Chinese professionals’ and technicians’ understanding of percutaneous transthoracic needle biopsy (PTNB) in order to standardize operating procedures and to strengthen perioperative management. However, there is currently no Chinese expert consensus that provides systematic standardization and guidance for PTNB in clinical practice. The Committee of Chinese Society of Interventional Oncology (CSIO) of the Chinese Anti‐Cancer Association (CACA) initiated a Chinese multidisciplinary expert consensus on PTNB. The consensus includes image‐guided methods, indications, contraindications, multidisciplinary team recommendations, biopsy procedures, daytime/outpatient biopsy, complications, pathological examination, and management of negative results.

In this paper, we present a new medical image fusion algorithm based on nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) and spiking cortical model (SCM). The flexible multi-resolution, anisotropy, and directional expansion characteristics of NSCT are associated with global coupling and pulse synchronization features of SCM. Considering the human visual system characteristics, two different fusion rules are used to fuse the low and high frequency sub-bands respectively. Firstly, maximum selection rule (MSR) is used to fuse low frequency coefficients. Secondly, spatial frequency (SF) is applied to motivate SCM network rather than using coefficients value directly, and then the time matrix of SCM is set as criteria to select coefficients of high frequency subband. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is achieved by the comparison with existing fusion methods

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