Non-invasive measurement of cerebral venous oxygenation (Y
) is of critical importance in brain diseases. The present work proposed a fast method to quantify regional Y
map for both large and small ...veins.
A new sequence was developed, referred to as TRU-VERA (T
relaxation under velocity encoding and rapid acquisition, which isolates blood spins from static tissue with velocity-encoding preparation, modulates the T
weighting of venous signal with T
-preparation and utilizes a bSSFP readout to achieve fast acquisition with high resolution. The sequence was first optimized to achieve best sensitivity for both large and small veins, and then validated with TRUST (T
relaxation under spin tagging), TRUPC (T
relaxation under phase contrast), and accelerated TRUPC MRI. Regional difference of Y
was evaluated, and test-retest reproducibility was examined.
Optimal Venc was determined to be 3 cm/s, while recovery time and balanced SSFP flip angle within reasonable range had minimal effect on SNR efficiency. Venous T
measured with TRU-VERA was highly correlated with T
from TRUST (R
= 0.90), and a conversion equation was established for further calibration to Y
. TRU-VERA sequences showed consistent Y
estimation with TRUPC (R
= 0.64) and accelerated TRUPC (R
= 0.79). Coefficient of variation was 0.84% for large veins and 2.49% for small veins, suggesting an excellent test-retest reproducibility.
The proposed TRU-VERA sequence is a promising method for vessel-specific oxygenation assessment.
Transparent polymeric thin films with high oxygen barrier are important for extending the shelf life of food and protecting flexible organic electronic devices. Polyelectrolyte/clay multilayer ...nanocoatings are shown to exhibit super gas barrier performance, but the layer‐by‐layer assembly process requires numerous deposition steps. In an effort to more quickly fabricate this type of barrier, a polyelectrolyte/clay coacervate composed of branched polyethyleneimine (PEI), poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), and kaolinite (KAO) clay is prepared and deposited in a single step, followed by humidity and thermal post‐treatments. When deposited onto a 179 µm poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) film, a 4 µm coacervate coating reduces the oxygen transmission rate (OTR) by more than three orders of magnitude, while maintaining high transparency. This single‐step deposition process uses only low‐cost, water‐based components and ambient conditions, which can be used to for sensitive food and electronics packaging.
A polyelectrolyte/clay coacervate is deposited as a high gas barrier thin film (≈4 µm thick) in a single step. This coating provides 179 µm poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) with three orders of magnitude reduction in oxygen transmission rate, with high transparency and moisture resistance. The combination of water‐based processing, ambient conditions, and quick/simple deposition make this coating ideal for packaging applications.
Objectives
To investigate whether dietary patterns are associated with frailty phenotypes in an elderly Taiwanese population.
Design
Cross‐sectional.
Setting
Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan ...(NAHSIT), 2014–2016.
Participants
Noninstitutionalized Taiwanese nationals aged 65 years and older enrolled in the NAHSIT (N = 923).
Measurements
Dietary intake was assessed using a 79‐item food‐frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Presence of 5 frailty phenotypes was determined using modified Fried criteria and are summed into a frailty score. Using data from the NAHSIT (2014–15), reduced rank regression was used to find a dietary pattern that explained maximal degree of variation of the frailty scores. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the association between frailty and dietary pattern. The findings were validated with data from 2016.
Results
The derived dietary pattern was characterized with a high consumption of fruit, nuts and seeds, tea, vegetables, whole grains, shellfish, milk, and fish. The prevalence of frailty was 7.8% and of prefrailty was 50.8%, defined using the modified Fried criteria. Using data from the NAHSIT (2014–15), the dietary pattern score showed an inverse dose‐response relationship with prevalence of frailty and pre‐frailty. Individuals in the second dietary pattern tertile were one‐third as likely to be frail as those in the first tertile (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 0.32, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.12−0.85), and those in the third tertile were 4% as likely to be frail as those in the first tertile (aOR = 0.04, 95% CI = 0.01−0.18). The dietary pattern score estimated using FFQ data from the NAHSIT 2016 was also significantly and inversely associated with frailty.
Conclusion
Individuals with a dietary pattern with more phytonutrient‐rich plant foods, tea, omega‐3‐rich deep‐sea fish, and other protein‐rich foods such as shellfish and milk had a reduced prevalence of frailty. Further research is necessary to confirm these findings and investigate whether related dietary interventions can reduce frailty in older adults.
Transmembrane water exchange, including intra-to-extravascular and intra-to-extracellular ones, are potential biomarkers in the diagnosis and understanding of cancers, brain disorders, and other ...diseases. Filter-exchange imaging (FEXI), a special case of diffusion exchange spectroscopy (DEXSY) adapted for clinical applications, has the potential to reveal different physiological water exchange processes using the same MRI sequence. In this study, we aim to explore the feasibility of FEXI in measuring different water exchange processes by modulating the diffusion filter (bf) and detection blocks in FEXI. Two FEXI protocols were implemented on a 3T MRI clinical scanner and reveal distinct apparent exchange rate (AXR) contrast in brain tissues in seven healthy volunteers. AXR estimated from a FEXI protocol with bf = 250 s/mm2, which is expected to filter out the vascular water specifically, are significantly larger than those of a FEXI protocol with bf = 900 s/mm2. Besides, the filter efficiency of FEXI with bf = 250 s/mm2 shows a strong correlation with vascular density, a metric estimated as the fraction of water exhibiting intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM). AXR of FEXI with bf = 250 s/mm2 agrees with the vascular water efflux rate constants reported by other independent measurements, although the physiological basis of the AXR of FEXI with bf = 900 s/mm2 is not clear yet. Collectively, our current results demonstrate the feasibility of FEXI in measuring different water exchange processes in vivo, and that FEXI targeting the vascular water could help characterize the intra-to-extravascular water exchange process.
Display omitted
Protein ubiquitination is an important mechanism for regulating the activity and levels of proteins under physiological conditions. Loss of regulation by protein ubiquitination leads to various ...diseases, such as cancer. Two types of enzymes, namely, E1/E2/E3 ligases and deubiquitinases, are responsible for controlling protein ubiquitination. The ubiquitin-specific peptidases (USPs) are the main members of the deubiquitinase family. Many studies have addressed the roles of USPs in various diseases. An increasing number of studies have indicated that USPs are critical for cancer progression, and some USPs have been used as targets to develop inhibitors for cancer prevention. Herein we collect and organize most of the recent studies on the roles of USPs in cancer progression and discuss the development of USP inhibitors for cancer therapy in the future.
Purpose
To correct the temporal B0 drift in chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) imaging in real‐time with extra free‐induction‐decay (FID) readout.
Theory and Methods
The frequency ...stabilization module of the recently proposed frequency‐stabilized CEST (FS‐CEST) sequence was further simplified by replacing the original three k‐space lines of gradient‐echo (GRE) readout with a single k‐space line of FID readout. The B0 drift was quantified using the phase difference between the odd and even parts of the FID signal in the frequency stabilization module and then used to update the B0 frequency in the succeeding modules. The proposed FS‐CEST sequence with FID readout (FID FS‐CEST) was validated in phantoms and 16 human subjects on cross‐vendor scanners.
Results
In the Siemens experiments, the FID FS‐CEST sequence successfully corrected the user‐induced B0 drift, generating consistent amide proton transfer‐weighted (APTw) images and magnetization transfer ratio asymmetry (MTRasym) spectra with those from the non‐frequency‐stabilized CEST (NFS‐CEST) sequence without B0 drift. In the Philips experiments, the FID FS‐CEST sequence produced more stable APTw images and MTRasym spectra than the NFS‐CEST sequence in the presence of practical B0 drift. Quantitatively, the SD of the APTw signal values in the deep gray matter from 15 subjects was 0.26% for the FID FS‐CEST sequence compared to 1.03% for the NFS‐CEST sequences, with the fluctuations reduced by nearly three‐quarters.
Conclusions
The proposed FS‐CEST sequence with FID readout can effectively correct the temporal B0 drift on cross‐vendor scanners.
Purpose
To propose a novel Numerical fitting method of the Extrapolated semisolid Magnetization transfer Reference (NEMR) signal for quantifying the CEST effect.
Theory and Methods
Modified two‐pool ...Bloch‐McConnell equations were used to numerically fit the magnetization transfer (MT) and direct water saturation (DS) signals at far off‐resonance frequencies, which was subsequently extrapolated into the frequency range of amide proton transfer (APT) and nuclear Overhauser enhancement (NOE) pools. Then the subtraction of the fitted two‐pool z‐spectrum and the experimentally acquired z‐spectrum yielded APT# and NOE# signals mostly free of MT and DS contamination. Several strategies were used to accelerate the NEMR fitting. Furthermore, the proposed NEMR method was compared with the conventional extrapolated semisolid magnetization transfer reference (EMR) and magnetization transfer ratio asymmetry (MTRasym) methods in simulations and stroke patients.
Results
The combination of RF downsampling, MT lineshape look‐up table, and conversion of MATLAB code to C code accelerated the NEMR fitting by over 2700‐fold. Monte‐Carlo simulations showed that NEMR had higher accuracy than EMR and eliminated the requirement of the steady‐state condition. In ischemic stroke patients, the NEMR maps at 1 μT removed hypointense artifacts seen on EMR and MTRasym images, and better depicted stroke lesions than EMR. For NEMR, NOE# yielded significantly (p < 0.05) stronger signal contrast between stroke and normal tissues than APT# at 1 μT.
Conclusion
The proposed NEMR method is suitable for arbitrary saturation settings and can remove MT and DS contamination from the CEST signal for improved detection of ischemic stroke.
Introduction
This study aimed to elucidate the bacterial profile of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) in patients with end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) compared with ...nonrenal patients, guiding antibiotic selection for clinicians.
Methods
We retrospectively analyzed 13,906 inpatients from the Chang Gung Research Database who underwent sinus surgery (2004–2018). Patients were categorized into ESRD‐CRS, CKD‐CRS, and non‐CKD‐CRS based on the estimated glomerular filtration rate. Bacterial cultures from surgical samples were classified as facultative anaerobes or aerobes (e.g., Klebsiella pneumoniae KP, Pseudomonas aeruginosa Ps.a), anaerobes, and fungi and ranked by prevalence.
Results
Data from 47 ESRD‐CRS, 230 CKD‐CRS, and 13,123 non‐CKD‐CRS patients were analyzed. In ESRD‐CRS, the predominant species were KP (31.6%), Ps.a (21.1%), and Coagulase‐negative Staphylococcus (CoNS, 15.8%). CKD‐CRS showed Staphylococcus epidermidis (27.7%), CoNS (20.5%), and Ps.a (20.5%). Non‐CKD‐CRS had Staphylococcus epidermidis (29.8%), CoNS (25.0%), and Staphylococcus aureus (15.5%). For anaerobes, ESRD‐CRS was dominated by Fusobacterium nucleatum (10.5%) and Peptostreptococcus micros (10.5%), whereas CKD‐CRS and non‐CKD‐CRS showed Propionibacterium acnes as a primary strain (14.5% and 28.7%, respectively).
Conclusion
For CRS in ESRD, antibiotics targeting KP and Fusobacterium nucleatum are recommended. In CKD‐CRS, a focus on Staphylococcus epidermidis and Propionibacterium acnes is suggested.
Level of Evidence
4 Laryngoscope, 134:3499–3507, 2024
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is one of the most common lung cancers worldwide. Accurate prognostic stratification of NSCLC can become an important clinical reference when designing therapeutic ...strategies for cancer patients. With this clinical application in mind, we developed a deep neural network (DNN) combining heterogeneous data sources of gene expression and clinical data to accurately predict the overall survival of NSCLC patients. Based on microarray data from a cohort set (614 patients), seven well-known NSCLC biomarkers were used to group patients into biomarker- and biomarker+ subgroups. Then, by using a systems biology approach, prognosis relevance values (PRV) were then calculated to select eight additional novel prognostic gene biomarkers. Finally, the combined 15 biomarkers along with clinical data were then used to develop an integrative DNN via bimodal learning to predict the 5-year survival status of NSCLC patients with tremendously high accuracy (AUC: 0.8163, accuracy: 75.44%). Using the capability of deep learning, we believe that our prediction can be a promising index that helps oncologists and physicians develop personalized therapy and build the foundation of precision medicine in the future.
Escherichia coli is a generic indicator of fecal contamination, and certain serotypes cause food- and water-borne illness such as O157:H7. In the clinic, detection of bacteriuria, which is often due ...to E. coli, is critical before certain surgical procedures or in cases of nosocomial infection to prevent further adverse events such as postoperative infection or sepsis. In low- and middle-income countries, where insufficient equipment and facilities preclude modern methods of detection, a simple, low-cost diagnostic device to detect E. coli in water and in the clinic will have significant impact. We have developed a simple paper-based colorimetric platform to detect E. coli contamination in 5h. On this platform, the mean color intensity for samples with 105cells/mL is 0.118±0.002 (n=4), and 0.0145±0.003 (P<0.01⁎⁎) for uncontaminated samples. This technique is less time-consuming, easier to perform, and less expensive than conventional methods. Thus, paper-based ELISA is an innovative point-of-care diagnostic tool to rapidly detect E. coli, and possibly other pathogens when customized as appropriate, especially in areas that lack advanced clinical equipment.
Display omitted
•A paper-based ELISA method was developed to detect E. coli.•The method is fast, simple, sensitive, and reproducible.•It facilitates rapid diagnosis of E. coli infection in clinical environments.•Possibly, the method may also be used to monitor food and water quality.
PDF
