Glaucoma is a leading cause of permanent blindness. However, disease progression can be limited if detected early. The optic cup-to-disc ratio (CDR) is one of the main clinical indicators of glaucoma, and is currently determined manually, limiting its potential in mass screening. In this paper, we propose an automatic CDR determination method using a variational level-set approach to segment the optic disc and cup from retinal fundus images. The method is a core component of ARGALI, a system for automated glaucoma risk assessment. Threshold analysis is used in preprocessing to estimate the initial contour. Due to the presence of retinal vasculature traversing the disc and cup boundaries which can cause inaccuracies in the detected contours, an ellipse-fitting post-processing step is also introduced. The method was tested on 104 images from the Singapore Malay Eye Study, and it was found the results produced a clinically acceptable variation of up to 0.2 CDR units from the manually graded samples, with potential use in mass screening.

The CAMI registry represents a well-supported and the largest national long-term registry-research-education platform for surveillance, research, prevention and care improvement for AMI in China, the world's most populous nation. The broad representation of all provinces and different-level hospitals will allow for the exploration of AMI across diverse geographic regions and economic circumstances.

Key Points Question What are the differences in care and outcomes of patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction among 3 vertical levels of hospitals in China? Findings In this cross-sectional study using data from the China Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry, which included 108 hospitals at the province, prefecture, and county levels, compared with patients in province-level hospitals, the rates of reperfusion therapy were lower among those in prefecture-level and county-level hospitals (69.4% vs 54.3% vs 45.8%). In-hospital mortality rates progressively increased among the 3 levels of hospitals, from 3.1% at the province level to 5.3% at the prefecture level to 10.2% at the county level. Meaning These findings suggest that more efforts should be made to address the gaps in care and outcomes of ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction for national quality improvement in China.

Taken together, our data demonstrate that JAK2/STAT3 signaling is essential for EGFRvIII-driven migration and invasion by promoting focal adhesion and stabilizing the EGFRvIII/JAK2/STAT3 axis. Targeting JAK2/STAT3 therapy, such as AG490, may have potential clinical implications for the tailored treatment of GBM patients bearing EGFRvIII-positive tumors.