Correlation between Clinical Tests and Magnetic Resonance Imaging Finding in Diagnosis of Chronic Ulnar-sided Wrist Pain

Background: Ulnar-sided wrist pain is a common cause of upper- extremity disability. Presentation can vary from acute traumatic injuries to chronic degenerative conditions. Carful clinical examination should be done, there are some provocative tests for some pathologies which induce pain when the patient has the specific pathology for the test. MRI of the wrist is often challenging because the components of the wrist have complex anatomy of bone and soft tissues, with ligaments and cartilage which are small sized structures measuring millimeters. MRI is a one of advanced imaging techniques that play an important role in evaluating the wrist and is a useful examination modality because of its multiplanar, multisequence capability and its excellent resolution of soft tissue structures. MRI is particularly advantageous for assessing occult bone lesions and soft tissue structures around the wrist such as cartilages, tendons, ligaments and nerves. Aim: The aim of this study is to assess the role and accuracy of clinical tests and MRI in diagnosis of chronic ulnar-sided wrist pain causes. Patients and Methods: This is a prospective study and was conducted on a 50 adult patients complaining from chronic ulnar side wrist pain. They were attended to Orthopedic Department of Tanta University Hospitals over a period of 6 months starting from November 2019 till May 2020. Results: MRI gave positive finding in most of patients (92%), while negative in about (8%) of cases, this means that there are some pathologies need more investigations to be diagnosed. Most of Clinical tests also gave a help in diagnosis of the cause of the pain especially ulnocarpal stress test, fovea sign test, ECU synergy test and piano key test which by statistics showed significant results but LT ballottement test had insignificant results so LTL pathology can't be diagnosed by clinical tests only but needs more investigations as MRI. So some pathologies can be diagnosed clinically as ECU tenosynovitis, but other pathologies need more investigations like MRI like LTL tear, also some pathologies need more investigations. Conclusion: Most of clinical tests give significant results in diagnosis of chronic ulnar-sided wrist pain except for some pathologies like LTL tear needs more investigations, also MRI has important role and gives significant results in diagnosis.

AngioPlate – Biofabrication of perfusable complex tissues in multi-well plates with 4D subtractive manufacturing

Organ-on-a-chip systems that recapitulate tissue-level functions have been proposed to improve in vitro-in vivo correlation in drug development. Significant progress has been made to control the cellular microenvironment with mechanical stimulation and fluid flow. However, it has been challenging to introduce complex 3D tissue structures due to the physical constraints of microfluidic channels or membranes in organ-on-a-chip systems. Although this problem could be addressed with the integration of 3D bioprinting, it is not an easy task because the two technologies have fundamentally different fabrication processes. Inspired by 4D bioprinting, we develop a 4D subtractive manufacturing technique where a flexible sacrificial material can be patterned on a 2D surface, change shape when exposed to aqueous hydrogel, and subsequently degrade to produce perfusable networks in a natural hydrogel matrix that can be populated with cells. The technique is applied to fabricate organ-specific vascular networks, vascularized kidney proximal tubules, and terminal lung alveoli in a customized 384-well plate and then further scaled to a 24-well plate format to make a large vascular network, vascularized liver tissues, and for integration with ultrasound imaging. This biofabrication method eliminates the physical constraints in organ-on-a-chip systems to incorporate complex ready-to-perfuse tissue structures in an open-well design.

Micro-CT imaging of Thiel-embalmed and iodine-stained human temporal bone for 3D modeling

Introduction This pilot study explores whether a human Thiel-embalmed temporal bone is suitable for generating an accurate and complete data set with micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) and whether solid iodine-staining improves visualization and facilitates segmentation of middle ear structures. Methods A temporal bone was used to verify the accuracy of the imaging by first digitally measuring the stapes on the tomography images and then physically under the microscope after removal from the temporal bone. All measurements were compared with literature values. The contralateral temporal bone was used to evaluate segmentation and three-dimensional (3D) modeling after iodine staining and micro-CT scanning. Results The digital and physical stapes measurements differed by 0.01–0.17 mm or 1–19%, respectively, but correlated well with the literature values. Soft tissue structures were visible in the unstained scan. However, iodine staining increased the contrast-to-noise ratio by a factor of 3.7 on average. The 3D model depicts all ossicles and soft tissue structures in detail, including the chorda tympani, which was not visible in the unstained scan. Conclusions Micro-CT imaging of a Thiel-embalmed temporal bone accurately represented the entire anatomy. Iodine staining considerably increased the contrast of soft tissues, simplified segmentation and enabled detailed 3D modeling of the middle ear.

Deep Learning in Pancreatic Tissue: Identification of Anatomical Structures, Pancreatic Intraepithelial Neoplasia, and Ductal Adenocarcinoma

Identification of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and precursor lesions in histological tissue slides can be challenging and elaborate, especially due to tumor heterogeneity. Thus, supportive tools for the identification of anatomical and pathological tissue structures are desired. Deep learning methods recently emerged, which classify histological structures into image categories with high accuracy. However, to date, only a limited number of classes and patients have been included in histopathological studies. In this study, scanned histopathological tissue slides from tissue microarrays of PDAC patients (n = 201, image patches n = 81.165) were extracted and assigned to a training, validation, and test set. With these patches, we implemented a convolutional neuronal network, established quality control measures and a method to interpret the model, and implemented a workflow for whole tissue slides. An optimized EfficientNet algorithm achieved high accuracies that allowed automatically localizing and quantifying tissue categories including pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia and PDAC in whole tissue slides. SmoothGrad heatmaps allowed explaining image classification results. This is the first study that utilizes deep learning for automatic identification of different anatomical tissue structures and diseases on histopathological images of pancreatic tissue specimens. The proposed approach is a valuable tool to support routine diagnostic review and pancreatic cancer research.

Exploring 4D Image Sets Of Early Heart Development Using Gesture And An Immersive, Spatial Operating Environment

Scientists today can collect more data than they can perceive using traditional visualization methods. New technologies and sensors allow researchers to gather dynamic, complex multi-dimensional data sets---all of which must be carefully studied to reveal their hidden patterns and narratives. The authors have utilized an immersive platform to design a new visualization for real-time, intuitive, spatial manipulations of time-based volumetric data sets via a wand-based gestural interface. The resulting work resolves microscopic tissue structures at a human scale in a room-based pixel space, facilitating research, discovery, and in-person teaching and collaboration.

Role of autoimmune disorders in the pathogenesis of cerebrovascular insufficiency in children with bronchial asthma

It has been shown that the main spectrum of immunopathological reactions in bronchial asthma in children has a clear antigenic dependence not only on the inflammatory-activated intermediate stroma of the bronchopulmonary system, but also on the effects of autoantibodies on cerebral vessels and cell tissue. insufficiency of this contingent of children, which is currently insufficiently studied. The aim is to study autoimmune disorders in the pathogenesis of cerebrovascular insufficiency in children with bronchial asthma. 121 patients with asthma aged 5 to 15 years in the period of exacerbation were examined. To study the role of the autoimmune component in the development of cerebrovascular insufficiency and its connection with the autoimmune process in the bronchopulmonary system in asthma in children, we used the method of quantitative determination of autoantibodies to lipopolysaccharide antigens of cerebral vessels and topographic structures of the brain and brain, trachea, bronchi and lung tissue. The results showed that the levels of autoantibodies to lipopolysaccharide antigens vessels and cell tissue structures of the brain and bronchopulmonary system in children with asthma significantly increased from mild to severe. The rank correlation showed that there is a direct reliable connection between the autoimmune process in the bronchopulmonary system and the level of autoantibodies to the lipopolysaccharide antigens of cerebral vessels and cell tissue structures of the brain. Thus, it is shown that the level of autoantibodies to lipopolysaccharide antigens arteries, venous vessels and cell tissue structures of the brain, allows to detect lesions of blood vessels and tissue areas of the brain in cerebrovascular insufficiency in children with asthma.