Even though plasma paraquat (PQ) levels have known to be an informative predictor, many patients succumb at low PQ levels in acute PQ intoxication. This study was designed to see whether the high resolution computerized tomography (HRCT) of the lungs would be a predictive measure in acute PQ intoxication. HRCT of the lungs was obtained from 119 patients with acute PQ intoxication on 7 days after PQ ingestion. The areas with ground glass opacities (GGOs) were evaluated at five levels with the area measurement tool of the picture archiving and communication systems. Among 119 patients, 102 survived and 17 died. The plasma PQ levels were significantly higher in the non-survivors than in the survivors (2.6±4.0 µg/mL vs. 0.2±0.4 µg/mL, P=0.02). The area with GGOs was 2.0±6.4% in the survivors and 73.0± 29.9% in the non-survivors (P<0.001). No patients survived when the area with GGOs was more than 40% but all of the patients survived when the area affected by GGOs was less than 20%. In conclusion, the area of GGOs is a useful predictor of survival in acute PQ intoxication, especially in patients with low plasma PQ levels.

Background/AimsCyclophosphamide (CP) is a promising treatment for severe cases of paraquat (PQ) poisoning. We investigated the effective dose of CP for mitigating PQ-induced lung injury.MethodsAdult male Sprague-Dawley rats were allocated into five groups: control, PQ (35 mg/kg, intraperitoneal injection), and PQ + CP (1.5, 15, or 30 mg/kg). The dimensions of lung lesions were determined using X-ray microtomography (micro-CT), and histological changes and cytokine levels were recorded.ResultsThe micro-CT results showed that 15 mg/kg CP was more effective than 1.5 mg/kg CP for treating PQ-induced lung injury. At a dose of 1.5 mg/kg, CP alleviated the histological evidence of inflammation and altered superoxide dismutase activity. Using 15 mg/kg CP reduced the elevated catalase activity and serum transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1 level.ConclusionsA CP dose of > 15 mg/kg is effective for reducing the severity of PQ-induced lung injury as determined by histological and micro-CT tissue examination, possibly by modulating antioxidant enzyme and TGF-β1 levels.

Rationale and Objectives The effect of smoking cessation on centrilobular emphysema (CLE) and centrilobular nodularity (CN), two manifestations of smoking-related lung injury on CT images, has not been clarified. The objective of this study is to leverage texture analysis to investigate differences in extent of CLE and CN between current and former smokers. Materials and Methods Chest CT scans from 350 current smokers, 401 former smokers, and 25 control subjects were obtained from the multicenter COPDGene Study, a HIPAA-compliant study approved by the institutional review board of each participating clinical study center. Additionally, for 215 of these subjects, a follow-up CT scan was obtained approximately five years later. For each CT scan, 5000 circular regions-of-interest (ROIs) of 35-pixel diameter were randomly selected throughout the lungs. The patterns present in each ROI were summarized by fifty computer-extracted texture features. A logistic regression classifier was leveraged to classify each ROI as normal lung, CLE, or CN, and differences in the percentages of normal lung, CLE, and CN by study group were assessed. Results Former smokers had significantly more CLE (p < 0.01) but less CN (p < 0.001) than current smokers, even after adjustment for important covariates such as patient age, GOLD stage, smoking history, FEV1, gas trapping, and scanner model. Among patients with longitudinal CT scans, continued smoking led to a slight increase in CLE (p = 0.13), whereas sustained abstinence from smoking led to further reduction in CN (p < 0.05). Conclusion The proposed texture-based approach quantifies the extent of CN and CLE with high precision. Differences in smoking-related lung disease between longitudinal scans of current and former smokers suggest that CN may be reversible upon smoking cessation.

One of the most common methods for diagnosing coronary artery disease is the use of the coronary artery calcium score CT. However, the current diagnostic method using the coronary artery calcium score CT requires a considerable time, because the radiologist must manually check the CT images one-by-one, and check the exact range. In this paper, three CNN models are applied for 1200 normal cardiovascular CT images, and 1200 CT images in which calcium is present in the cardiovascular system. We conduct the experimental test by classifying the CT image data into the original coronary artery calcium score CT images containing the entire rib cage, the cardiac segmented images that cut out only the heart region, and cardiac cropped images that are created by using the cardiac images that are segmented into nine sub-parts and enlarged. As a result of the experimental test to determine the presence of calcium in a given CT image using Inception Resnet v2, VGG, and Resnet 50 models, the highest accuracy of 98.52% was obtained when cardiac cropped image data was applied using the Resnet 50 model. Therefore, in this paper, it is expected that through further research, both the simple presence of calcium and the automation of the calcium analysis score for each coronary artery calcium score CT will become possible.

소아와 청소년에서 서혜부와 음낭 질환들은 비교적 흔하며, 영상은 이들 질환의 진단과 감별 진단에 매우 유용하다. 때문에 이 질환들의 영상 소견을 알고 있는 것이 중요하다. 이 논문에서는 이 질환들을 크기가 작은 고환, 잠복고환, 남아있는 초상 돌기, 급성 고환통, 외상, 종양, 그 외로 분류하고 이 질환 들의 특징적인 소견에 대해 기술하고자 한다.