Microfluidics : the fur-free way towards personalised medicine in cancer therapy

Microfluidic technology has great potential for complementing and, in some instances, replacing the use of animal models in the testing of medicines and in developing personalised treatments for cancer patients. The maintenance of tissue in an in vivo-like state provides a platform upon which normal and diseased tissue biology can be investigated in a novel way. This review describes the use of microfluidic technology for the maintenance of tissue samples ex vivo and the current state of play for the use of this technology in the replacement of animal models, with a focus on cancer

A survey on utilization of data mining approaches for dermatological (skin) diseases prediction

Due to recent technology advances, large volumes of medical data is obtained. These data contain valuable information. Therefore data mining techniques can be used to extract useful patterns. This paper is intended to introduce data mining and its various techniques and a survey of the available literature on medical data mining. We emphasize mainly on the application of data mining on skin diseases. A categorization has been provided based on the different data mining techniques. The utility of the various data mining methodologies is highlighted. Generally association mining is suitable for extracting rules. It has been used especially in cancer diagnosis. Classification is a robust method in medical mining. In this paper, we have summarized the different uses of classification in dermatology. It is one of the most important methods for diagnosis of erythemato-squamous diseases. There are different methods like Neural Networks, Genetic Algorithms and fuzzy classifiaction in this topic. Clustering is a useful method in medical images mining. The purpose of clustering techniques is to find a structure for the given data by finding similarities between data according to data characteristics. Clustering has some applications in dermatology. Besides introducing different mining methods, we have investigated some challenges which exist in mining skin data

Effects of niacin restriction on sirtuin and PARP responses to photodamage in human skin.

Sirtuins (SIRTs) and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerases (PARPs), NAD(+)-dependent enzymes, link cellular energy status with responses to environmental stresses. Skin is frequently exposed to the DNA damaging effects of UV irradiation, a known etiology in skin cancer. Thus, understanding the defense mechanisms in response to UV, including the role of SIRTs and PARPs, may be important in developing skin cancer prevention strategies. Here, we report expression of the seven SIRT family members in human skin. SIRTs gene expressions are progressively upregulated in A431 epidermoid carcinoma cells (SIRTs1 and 3), actinic keratoses (SIRTs 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7) and squamous cell carcinoma (SIRTs 1-7). Photodamage induces dynamic changes in SIRT expression with upregulation of both SIRT1 and SIRT4 mRNAs. Specific losses of SIRT proteins occur early after photodamage followed by accumulation later, especially for SIRT4. Niacin restriction, which decreases NAD(+), the sirtuin substrate, results in an increase in acetylated proteins, upregulation of SIRTs 2 and 4, increased inherent DNA damage, alterations in SIRT responses to photodamage, abrogation of PARP activation following photodamage, and increased sensitivity to photodamage that is completely reversed by repleting niacin. These data support the hypothesis that SIRTs and PARPs play important roles in resistance to photodamage and identify specific SIRTs that respond to photodamage and may be targets for skin cancer prevention

Breast tumour detection using a flat 16 element array

A new experimental prototype of a breast cancer detection technique using real aperture multi-static radar is presented. The system comprises a fully-populated 16 element flat array and an associated system to switch between different transmit and receive elements. 3D images are produced using backscatter signals from a synthetic breast phantom. After suppression of skin reflections, initial images demonstrate the successful detection of 4-mmdiameter tumours

MRI-guided focused ultrasound surgery in musculoskeletal diseases: the hot topics

MRI-guided focused ultrasound surgery (MRgFUS) is a minimally invasive treatment guided by the most sophisticated imaging tool available in today's clinical practice. Both the imaging and therapeutic sides of the equipment are based on non-ionizing energy. This technique is a very promising option as potential treatment for several pathologies, including musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders. Apart from clinical applications, MRgFUS technology is the result of long, heavy and cumulative efforts exploring the effects of ultrasound on biological tissues and function, the generation of focused ultrasound and treatment monitoring by MRI. The aim of this article is to give an updated overview on a "new" interventional technique and on its applications for MSK and allied sciences

A comparative study of breast surface reconstruction for aesthetic outcome assessment

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer type in women, and while its survival rate is generally high the aesthetic outcome is an increasingly important factor when evaluating different treatment alternatives. 3D scanning and reconstruction techniques offer a flexible tool for building detailed and accurate 3D breast models that can be used both pre-operatively for surgical planning and post-operatively for aesthetic evaluation. This paper aims at comparing the accuracy of low-cost 3D scanning technologies with the significantly more expensive state-of-the-art 3D commercial scanners in the context of breast 3D reconstruction. We present results from 28 synthetic and clinical RGBD sequences, including 12 unique patients and an anthropomorphic phantom demonstrating the applicability of low-cost RGBD sensors to real clinical cases. Body deformation and homogeneous skin texture pose challenges to the studied reconstruction systems. Although these should be addressed appropriately if higher model quality is warranted, we observe that low-cost sensors are able to obtain valuable reconstructions comparable to the state-of-the-art within an error margin of 3 mm.Comment: This paper has been accepted to MICCAI201