Morphometric analysis of capillaries in upper limbs in patients with ischemic stroke

Background. The aim of study was to answer whether acute phase of ischemic stroke may provoke upper limb capillary changes. We also tried to assess the character of the changes and the correlation between them and severity of ischemic stroke its acute phase as well as coexisting factors, which may facilitate skin capillary circulation abnormalities, i.e. blood hypertension, diabetes mellitus t. 2, and smoking. Material and methods. A qualitative and quantitative analysis of nailfold capillaries of upper limbs was done on 92 patients: 39 women and 53 men aged 46–92 years (on the average 67.7 yrs) admitted to the Department of Neurology between 2002 and 2003 because of first-ever episode of ischemic stroke. Control group consisted of 30 individuals: 13 women and 17 men suffered from diseases, which should not influence the capillaries. The nailfold capillaroscopy was done by means of Olympus PV10 videomicroscope connected with the KONTRON KS-100 v. 2.0 imaging system (license No. 0100176). The assessment has been done twice: on the first and 7th–10th day after ischemic stroke onset. Conclusions. In patients with ischemic stroke the skin capillaries of fingers appeared to be dilated. It was found in both upper limbs, but the dilation was significantly more distinct in arm involved by stroke. The skin capillary loops dilation was transient and disappeared within acute phase of stroke. Transient central and peripheral autonomic disregulation in the initial period of stroke is probably responsible for capillary dilation. The extent of dilation does not depend on intensity of paresis, however it correlated with smoking.Wstęp. Celem pracy była jakościowa i ilościowa ocena zmian w krążeniu włośniczkowym skóry w kończynach górnych u chorych z niedokrwiennym udarem mózgu i próba odpowiedzi na pytania, czy w ostrej fazie udaru dochodzi do zaburzeń w krążeniu włośniczkowym skóry i jaki te zaburzenia mają charakter, a także czy występują korelacje między zaburzeniami w krążeniu włośniczkowym skóry a ciężkością i fazą udaru oraz współwystępującymi nadciśnieniem tętniczym, cukrzycą typu 2 i paleniem tytoniu. Materiał i metody. Badaniu poddano 92 chorych: 39 kobiet i 53 mężczyzn w wieku 46–92 lat (śr. wieku 67,7 lat), hospitalizowanych w Klinice Neurologii PAM w latach 2002-2003 z powodu wystąpienia pierwszego w życiu udaru niedokrwiennego mózgu. Grupę kontrolną stanowiło 30 osób: 13 kobiet, 17 mężczyzn w wieku 45-82 lat (śr. wieku 62 lata), leczonych w Klinice z powodu chorób, które nie powinny wpływać na stan włośniczek w kończynach. Biorących udział w badaniu 2-krotnie poddano kapilaroskopii wału paznokciowego, przeprowadzonej za pomocą wideomikroskopu Olympus PV10, po raz pierwszy w 1. dobie udaru i kolejny - między 7. a 10. dobą udaru. Wnioski. 1. U chorych z niedokrwiennym udarem mózgu dochodzi do rozszerzenia naczyń włosowatych skóry. Zjawisko to dotyczy obu kończyn górnych, jednak znamiennie większe jest w kończynie niedowładnej. 2. Rozszerzenie pętli włośniczkowych skóry ma charakter przemijający i cofa się jeszcze w ostrej fazie udaru niedokrwiennego. Za poszerzenie włośniczek przypuszczalnie odpowiada przejściowe, czynnościowe zaburzenie funkcji ośrodkowych i obwodowych struktur układu autonomicznego w początkowym okresie ostrej fazy udaru niedokrwiennego. 3. Stopień rozszerzenia pętli włośniczkowych skóry nie zależy od głębokości niedowładu ani współwystępującego nadciśnienia tętniczego i cukrzycy typu 2, natomiast koreluje z paleniem tytoniu

Multi-dimensional local binary pattern texture descriptors and their application for medical image analysis

Texture can be broadly stated as spatial variation of image intensities. Texture analysis and classification is a well researched area for its importance to many computer vision applications. Consequently, much research has focussed on deriving powerful and efficient texture descriptors. Local binary patterns (LBP) and its variants are simple yet powerful texture descriptors. LBP features describe the texture neighbourhood of a pixel using simple comparison operators, and are often calculated based on varying neighbourhood radii to provide multi-resolution texture descriptions. A comprehensive evaluation of different LBP variants on a common benchmark dataset is missing in the literature. This thesis presents the performance for different LBP variants on texture classification and retrieval tasks. The results show that multi-scale local binary pattern variance (LBPV) gives the best performance over eight benchmarked datasets. Furthermore, improvements to the Dominant LBP (D-LBP) by ranking dominant patterns over complete training set and Compound LBP (CM-LBP) by considering 16 bits binary codes are suggested which are shown to outperform their original counterparts. The main contribution of the thesis is the introduction of multi-dimensional LBP features, which preserve the relationships between different scales by building a multi-dimensional histogram. The results on benchmarked classification and retrieval datasets clearly show that the multi-dimensional LBP (MD-LBP) improves the results compared to conventional multi-scale LBP. The same principle is applied to LBPV (MD-LBPV), again leading to improved performance. The proposed variants result in relatively large feature lengths which is addressed using three different feature length reduction techniques. Principle component analysis (PCA) is shown to give the best performance when the feature length is reduced to match that of conventional multi-scale LBP. The proposed multi-dimensional LBP variants are applied for medical image analysis application. The first application is nailfold capillary (NC) image classification. Performance of MD-LBPV on NC images is highest, whereas for second application, HEp-2 cell classification, performance of MD-LBP is highest. It is observed that the proposed texture descriptors gives improved texture classification accuracy

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 157, August 1976

This bibliography lists 228 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in July 1976

Temporomandibular Joint Diseases: Diagnosis and Management

Temporomandibular Joint Diseases are common and dificult to treat. From diagnosis to treatment, our options are in a broad range. Keeping updated with new technologies is extremely important for researchers and health professionals

Investigating novel pathways in B cell mediated autoimmunity in the context of the disease juvenile dermatomyositis

The Inflammatory Idiopathic Myopathies (IIM) are a rare group of myopathic autoimmune diseases diagnosed in both adults and children. Patients present with proximal muscle weakness and Gottron’s papules. Immunohistochemical analysis of muscle tissue from these patients has identified immune cell infiltrate and the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines however, little is known about the peripheral immunological profile in juvenile and adult patient groups. There are three aims: Firstly, to investigate mechanisms driving B cell lymphocytosis and define pathological features of B cells in the blood of Juvenile Dermatomyositis (JDM) patients. Secondly, to identify specific immune cell signatures and cytokine profiles for myositis disease subtypes and correlate this data with measurements of disease activity. Finally, to delineate a correlation between the up-regulated type I interferon signature and dysfunction of cholesterol homeostasis in immune cells. Using a combination of cell culture, flow cytometry, RNA-seq, q-PCR and ELISA techniques this study has assessed the immune cell signature, B cell biology and IFN related mechanisms in patients with IIM. The results identified that JDM patients with active disease have a significantly expanded immature B cell population which was correlated with a type I IFN signature. Activation through TLR7 and IFN- may drive the expansion of immature B cells in JDM and skew the cells towards a more pro-inflammatory phenotype. There are unique immune signatures in adult disease sub-types, one example was an expanded Th17 population seen in adult dermatomyositis (ADM). Lastly, IFN- stimulation of T and B cells does change the expression of some genes that are part of the Hallmark cholesterol homeostasis pathway. In conclusion, the work undertaken during my thesis provides further evidence that anti- IFN biologics could be efficacious in the treatment of JDM. Also, the need for further investigation for the use of IL-17A inhibitors in the treatment of IIM