Advancements and Breakthroughs in Ultrasound Imaging

Ultrasonic imaging is a powerful diagnostic tool available to medical practitioners, engineers and researchers today. Due to the relative safety, and the non-invasive nature, ultrasonic imaging has become one of the most rapidly advancing technologies. These rapid advances are directly related to the parallel advancements in electronics, computing, and transducer technology together with sophisticated signal processing techniques. This book focuses on state of the art developments in ultrasonic imaging applications and underlying technologies presented by leading practitioners and researchers from many parts of the world

Acute lung injury in paediatric intensive care: course and outcome

Introduction: Acute lung injury (ALI) and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) carry a high morbidity and mortality (10-90%). ALI is characterised by non-cardiogenic pulmonary oedema and refractory hypoxaemia of multifactorial aetiology [1]. There is limited data about outcome particularly in children. Methods This retrospective cohort study of 85 randomly selected patients with respiratory failure recruited from a prospectively collected database represents 7.1% of 1187 admissions. They include those treated with High Frequency Oscillation Ventilation (HFOV). The patients were admitted between 1 November 1998 and 31 October 2000. Results: Of the 85, 49 developed acute lung injury and 47 had ARDS. There were 26 males and 23 females with a median age and weight of 7.7 months (range 1 day-12.8 years) and 8 kg (range 0.8-40 kg). There were 7 deaths giving a crude mortality of 14.3%, all of which fulfilled the Consensus I [1] criteria for ARDS. Pulmonary occlusion pressures were not routinely measured. The A-a gradient and PaO2/FiO2 ratio (median + [95% CI]) were 37.46 [31.82-43.1] kPa and 19.12 [15.26-22.98] kPa respectively. The non-survivors had a significantly lower PaO2/FiO2 ratio (13 [6.07-19.93] kPa) compared to survivors (23.85 [19.57-28.13] kPa) (P = 0.03) and had a higher A-a gradient (51.05 [35.68-66.42] kPa) compared to survivors (36.07 [30.2-41.94]) kPa though not significant (P = 0.06). Twenty-nine patients (59.2%) were oscillated (Sensormedics 3100A) including all 7 non-survivors. There was no difference in ventilation requirements for CMV prior to oscillation. Seventeen of the 49 (34.7%) were treated with Nitric Oxide including 5 out of 7 non-survivors (71.4%). The median (95% CI) number of failed organs was 3 (1.96-4.04) for non-survivors compared to 1 (0.62-1.62) for survivors (P = 0.03). There were 27 patients with isolated respiratory failure all of whom survived. Six (85.7%) of the non-survivors also required cardiovascular support.Conclusion: A crude mortality of 14.3% compares favourably to published data. The A-a gradient and PaO2/FiO2 ratio may be of help in morbidity scoring in paediatric ARDS. Use of Nitric Oxide and HFOV is associated with increased mortality, which probably relates to the severity of disease. Multiple organ failure particularly respiratory and cardiac disease is associated with increased mortality. ARDS with isolated respiratory failure carries a good prognosis in children

A system theory based digital model for predicting the cumulative fluid balance course in intensive care patients

Background: Surgical interventions can cause severe fluid imbalances in patients undergoing cardiac surgery, affecting length of hospital stay and survival. Therefore, appropriate management of daily fluid goals is a key element of postoperative intensive care in these patients. Because fluid balance is influenced by a complex interplay of patient-, surgery- and intensive care unit (ICU)-specific factors, fluid prediction is difficult and often inaccurate.Methods: A novel system theory based digital model for cumulative fluid balance (CFB) prediction is presented using recorded patient fluid data as the sole parameter source by applying the concept of a transfer function. Using a retrospective dataset of n = 618 cardiac intensive care patients, patient-individual models were created and evaluated. RMSE analyses and error calculations were performed for reasonable combinations of model estimation periods and clinically relevant prediction horizons for CFB.Results: Our models have shown that a clinically relevant time horizon for CFB prediction with the combination of 48 h estimation time and 8–16 h prediction time achieves high accuracy. With an 8-h prediction time, nearly 50% of CFB predictions are within ±0.5 L, and 77% are still within the clinically acceptable range of ±1.0 L.Conclusion: Our study has provided a promising proof of principle and may form the basis for further efforts in the development of computational models for fluid prediction that do not require large datasets for training and validation, as is the case with machine learning or AI-based models. The adaptive transfer function approach allows estimation of CFB course on a dynamically changing patient fluid balance system by simulating the response to the current fluid management regime, providing a useful digital tool for clinicians in daily intensive care

Cancer Immunotherapy and Biological Cancer Treatments

In recent years, biological cancer therapies, including immunotherapy, have moved from the bench to mainstream medical treatments of several types of cancer. The success of these treatments relies on innovative approaches to specifically interfere with molecular targets that are involved in the growth, progression, and spread of malignant cells, or to bypass the tumor evasion of the immune system utilizing the latest advances in cancer vaccine development, formulation, and delivery. This book presents an up-to-date overview of novel cancer biological and immunotherapeutic approaches, including cancer vaccines, mimetic vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, adoptive T-cell transfer, chimeric antigen receptor T- cells, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, dendritic cells, natural killer cells, immune checkpoint inhibitors, laser ablation, and immune stimulating interstitial laser thermotherapy