Grayscale, subjective color Doppler, combined grayscale with subjective color Doppler in predicting thyroid carcinoma: a retrospective analysis

Abstract Introduction: Fine needle aspiration cytology is preferred for thyroid nodules preoperatively, but has disadvantages of false-negative and false-positive results. Objective: To compare the diagnostic performance of grayscale ultrasound, subjective color Doppler ultrasound, and combined features of grayscale ultrasound and subjective color Doppler ultrasound in predicting thyroid carcinoma, using results of the fine needle aspiration cytology as the reference standard. Methods: Data from gray-scale ultrasound images, subjective color Doppler ultrasound images, and the fine needle aspiration cytology of 325 nodules of 250 patients (age ≥ 18 years) were collected and analyzed. Hypo-echogenicity than adjacent strap muscle, micro-lobulated or irregular margins, micro- or mixed calcifications, and taller-than-wide shapes were considered as a suspicious malignant nodule in grayscale ultrasound. Marked vascularity was considered as a suspicious malignant nodule in color Doppler ultrasound. The Bethesda system for classification of thyroid nodules was used for cytopathology. Results: With respect to the results of fine-needle aspiration cytology for detecting suspicious malignant nodules, for grayscale ultrasound, subjective color Doppler ultrasound, and combined gray-scale with subjective color Doppler ultrasound, sensitivities were 0.564, 0.600 and 0.691, respectively and accuracies were 0.926, 0.919 and 0.959, respectively. Suspicious malignant nodules detectability for grayscale ultrasound, subjective color Doppler ultrasound, and combined gray-scale with subjective color Doppler ultrasound were 0.09–0.56 diagnostic confidence, 0.08–0.61 diagnostic confidence, and 0.063–0.7 diagnostic confidence, respectively. Conclusion: The combined gray-scale with subjective color Doppler ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsies are recommended for the diagnosis of thyroid carcinoma. Level of Evidence: III.</div

Bimetallic Hierarchical Nanostructured Alumina Material Catalyzes Decarboxylation of Oleic Acid to Produce Long-Chain Alkanes for Bioaviation Kerosene

Standard alumina has only a small number of mesopores, which is not conducive to the mass transfer of biomacromolecules and so affects the catalytic activity in the case that this material is used as a catalyst substrate. In the present work, hierarchical nanostructured γ-Al2O3 (HNCγ-Al2O3) assembled from nanosheets was obtained after high-temperature calcination and a low-temperature hydrothermal treatment of an Al-MOF precursor. This material had a high Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area (266.8 cm3/g) and pore volume (0.64 cm3/g) together with abundant mesopores. Both monometallic and bimetallic Pt/Ni catalysts were prepared using HNCγ-Al2O3 as a carrier and applied to the decarboxylation of oleic acid to produce C8–C17 alkanes. Compared with monometallic materials, the introduction of a second metal increased the quantity and strength of acidic sites on the catalyst. A synergistic effect obtained by incorporating Pt and Ni in the bimetallic catalysts increased the number of oxygen vacancies in the materials and lowered the temperature required to reduce NiOx. At 340 °C, Pt–Ni/Al-1:3 catalyzed the decarboxylation reaction of oleic acid, giving a yield of the product C8–C17 alkanes of 85.3% after a 4 h reaction