Plasma free choline is a novel non-invasive biomarker for early-stage non-alcoholic steatohepatitis: A multi-center validation study

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a major cause of blindness in diabetic patients. The increasing population of diabetic patients and difficulty to diagnose it at an early stage are limiting the screening capabilities of manual diagnosis by ophthalmologists. Color fundus images are widely used to detect DR lesions due to their comfortable, cost-effective and non-invasive acquisition procedure. Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) of DR based on these images can assist ophthalmologists and help in saving many sight years of diabetic patients. In a CAD system, preprocessing is a crucial phase, which significantly affects its performance. Commonly used preprocessing operations are the enhancement of poor contrast, balancing the illumination imbalance due to the spherical shape of a retina, noise reduction, image resizing to support multi-resolution, color normalization, extraction of a field of view (FOV), etc. Also, the presence of blood vessels and optic discs makes the lesion detection more challenging because these two artifacts exhibit specific attributes, which are similar to those of DR lesions. Preprocessing operations can be broadly divided into three categories: 1) fixing the native defects, 2) segmentation of blood vessels, and 3) localization and segmentation of optic discs. This paper presents a review of the state-of-the-art preprocessing techniques related to three categories of operations, highlighting their significant aspects and limitations. The survey is concluded with the most effective preprocessing methods, which have been shown to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the CAD systems.

Download Full-text

Increasing Electric Vehicles Reliability by Non-Invasive Diagnosis of Motor Winding Faults

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14092510 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (9) ◽

pp. 2510

Author(s):

Konrad Górny ◽

Piotr Kuwałek ◽

Wojciech Pietrowski

Keyword(s):

Electric Vehicles ◽

Diagnostic Method ◽

Induction Motors ◽

Early Stage ◽

Short Circuit ◽

Damage Classification ◽

Non Invasive ◽

Signal Features ◽

Empirical Wavelet Transform ◽

Simulation Results

The article proposes a proprietary approach to the diagnosis of induction motors allowing increasing the reliability of electric vehicles. This approach makes it possible to detect damage in the form of an inter-turn short-circuit at an early stage of its occurrence. The authors of the article describe an effective diagnostic method using the extraction of diagnostic signal features using an Enhanced Empirical Wavelet Transform and an algorithm based on the method of Ensemble Bagged Trees. The article describes in detail the methodology of the carried out research, presents the method of extracting features from the diagnostic signal and describes the conclusions resulting from the research. Phase current waveforms obtained from a real object as well as simulation results based on the field-circuit model of an induction motor were used as a diagnostic signal in the research. In order to determine the accuracy of the damage classification, simple metrics such as accuracy, sensitivity, selectivity, precision as well as complex metrics weight F1 and macro F1 were used.

Download Full-text

Panel of serum miRNAs as potential non-invasive biomarkers for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-82266-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Imteyaz Ahmad Khan ◽

Safoora Rashid ◽

Nidhi Singh ◽

Sumaira Rashid ◽

Vishwajeet Singh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Next Generation Sequencing ◽

Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma ◽

Early Stage ◽

Ductal Adenocarcinoma ◽

Next Generation ◽

Serum Samples ◽

Tissue Samples ◽

Non Invasive ◽

Specific Symptoms ◽

Generation Sequencing

AbstractEarly-stage diagnosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is difficult due to non-specific symptoms. Circulating miRNAs in body fluids have been emerging as potential non-invasive biomarkers for diagnosis of many cancers. Thus, this study aimed to assess a panel of miRNAs for their ability to differentiate PDAC from chronic pancreatitis (CP), a benign inflammatory condition of the pancreas. Next-generation sequencing was performed to identify miRNAs present in 60 FFPE tissue samples (27 PDAC, 23 CP and 10 normal pancreatic tissues). Four up-regulated miRNAs (miR-215-5p, miR-122-5p, miR-192-5p, and miR-181a-2-3p) and four down-regulated miRNAs (miR-30b-5p, miR-216b-5p, miR-320b, and miR-214-5p) in PDAC compared to CP were selected based on next-generation sequencing results. The levels of these 8 differentially expressed miRNAs were measured by qRT-PCR in 125 serum samples (50 PDAC, 50 CP, and 25 healthy controls (HC)). The results showed significant upregulation of miR-215-5p, miR-122-5p, and miR-192-5p in PDAC serum samples. In contrast, levels of miR-30b-5p and miR-320b were significantly lower in PDAC as compared to CP and HC. ROC analysis showed that these 5 miRNAs can distinguish PDAC from both CP and HC. Hence, this panel can serve as a non-invasive biomarker for the early detection of PDAC.

Download Full-text

Guideline-concordant treatment predicts survival: a National Cancer Database validation study of novel composite locoregional and systemic treatment scores among women with early stage breast cancer

Breast Cancer ◽

10.1007/s12282-020-01206-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Tina W. F. Yen ◽

Zhuping Garacci ◽

Purushottam W. Laud ◽

Liliana E. Pezzin ◽

Ann B. Nattinger

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

Validation Study ◽

Systemic Treatment ◽

Early Stage ◽

Early Stage Breast Cancer ◽

National Cancer Database

Download Full-text

Circulating serum exosomal miR-20b-5p and miR-3187-5p as efficient diagnostic biomarkers for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer

Experimental Biology and Medicine ◽

10.1177/1535370220945987 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 245 (16) ◽

pp. 1428-1436

Author(s):

Zhi-Jun Zhang ◽

Xing-Guo Song ◽

Li Xie ◽

Kang-Yu Wang ◽

You-Yong Tang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Lung Cancer ◽

Small Cell Lung Cancer ◽

Cell Lung Cancer ◽

Early Stage ◽

Small Cell ◽

Small Cell Lung ◽

Diagnostic Biomarkers ◽

Non Invasive ◽

Early Stage Nsclc ◽

Nsclc Patients

Circulating exosomal microRNAs (ExmiRNAs) provide an ideal non-invasive method for cancer diagnosis. In this study, we evaluated two circulating ExmiRNAs in NSCLC patients as a diagnostic tool for early-stage non-small lung cancer (NSCLC). The exosomes were characterized by qNano, transmission electron microscopy, and Western blot, and the ExmiRNA expression was measured by microarrays. The differentially expressed miRNAs were verified by RT-qPCR using peripheral blood specimens from NSCLC patients ( n = 276, 0 and I stage: n = 104) and healthy donors ( n = 282). The diagnostic values were measured by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The results show that the expression of both ExmiR-20b-5p and ExmiR-3187-5p was drastically reduced in NSCLC patients. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was determined to be 0.818 and 0.690 for ExmiR-20b-5p and ExmiR-3187-5p, respectively. When these two ExmiRNAs were combined, the AUC increased to 0.848. When the ExmiRNAs were administered with either carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) or cytokeratin-19-fragment (CYFRA21-1), the AUC was further improved to 0.905 and 0.894, respectively. Additionally, both ExmiR-20b-5p and ExmiR-3187-5p could be used to distinguish early stages NSCLC (0 and I stage) from the healthy controls. The ROC curves showed that the AUCs were 0.810 and 0.673, respectively. Combination of ExmiR-20b-5p and ExmiR-3187-5p enhanced the AUC to 0.838. When CEA and CYFRA21-1 were administered with the ExmiRNAs, the AUCs were improved to 0.930 and 0.928, respectively. In summary, circulating serum exosomal miR-20b-5p and miR-3187-5p could be used as effective, non-invasive biomarkers for the diagnosis of early-stage NSCLC, and the effects were further improved when the ExmiRNAs were combined. Impact statement The high mortality of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is mainly because the cancer has progressed to a more advanced stage before diagnosis. If NSCLC can be diagnosed at early stages, especially stage 0 or I, the overall survival rate will be largely improved by definitive treatment such as lobectomy. We herein validated two novel circulating serum ExmiRs as diagnostic biomarkers for early-stage NSCLC to fulfill the unmet medical need. Considering the number of specimens in this study, circulating serum exosomal miR-20b-5p and miR-3187-5p are putative NSCLC biomarkers, which need to be further investigated in a larger randomized controlled clinical trial.

Download Full-text