Can Archival Tissue Reveal Answers to Modern Research Questions?: Computer-Aided Histological Assessment of Neuroblastoma Tumours Collected over 60 Years.

Despite neuroblastoma being the most common extracranial solid cancer in childhood, it is still a rare disease. Consequently, the unavailability of tissue for research limits the statistical power of studies. Pathology archives are possible sources of rare tissue, which, if proven to remain consistent over time, could prove useful to research of rare disease types. We applied immunohistochemistry to investigate whether long term storage caused any changes to antigens used diagnostically for neuroblastoma. We constructed and quantitatively assessed a tissue microarray containing neuroblastoma archival material dating between 1950 and 2007. A total of 119 neuroblastoma tissue cores were included spanning 6 decades. Fourteen antibodies were screened across the tissue microarray (TMA). These included seven positive neuroblastoma diagnosis markers (NB84, Chromogranin A, NSE, Ki-67, INI1, Neurofilament Protein, Synaptophysin), two anticipated to be negative (S100A, CD99), and five research antibodies (IL-7, IL-7R, JAK1, JAK3, STAT5). The staining of these antibodies was evaluated using Aperio ImageScope software along with novel pattern recognition and quantification algorithms. This analysis demonstrated that marker signal intensity did not decrease over time and that storage for 60 years had little effect on antigenicity. The construction and assessment of this neuroblastoma TMA has demonstrated the feasibility of using archival samples for research

Digital morphometric analysis of skin elements.

Objetivo: Proponer el uso de la infraestructura digital morfométrica para la cuantificación microscópica objetiva de elementos celulares y de la matriz extracelular en heridas y cicatrizaciones de la piel. Descripción de posibles usos, ventajas e inconvenientes. Presentación de una propuesta en diversos cortes histológicos del sistema tegumentario. Material y métodos: En el ejemplo empleado se utilizaron cortes de piel fina sana teñidos con técnicas histoquímicas e inmunohistoquímicas. Las muestras se digitalizaron con el escáner Panoramic MIDI (3D Histech Ltd.) y las imágenes obtenidas se analizaron con el software Panoramic Viewer v.1.15 (3D Histech Ltd) para cuantificar elementos celulares y con el software Image Pro-plus v.6.0 (Media Cybernetics) para cuantificar y caracterizar elementos fibrosos de la matriz extracelular. Resultados: Por un lado cuantificamos las células CD1a+ de la epidermis y la dermis detectando 164 elementos positivos por mm2 y 2.039 elementos negativos por mm2 ; representando el 7,46% de las células cutáneas y, por tanto, las células de Langerhans epidérmicas y macrófagos dérmicos. También valoramos fibras de la matriz extracelular en las capas papilar y reticular de la dermis. En relación con las fibras elásticas, se cuantificó un número mayor por unidad de área con mayor porcentaje de área teñida en la dermis profunda o capa reticular. Mientras que, para las fibras de colágeno, se detectó mayor cantidad por unidad de área con menor porcentaje de área teñida en la dermis superficial o capa papilar. Con respecto a las características de las fibras elásticas en las dos capas, distinguimos que formaban redes más ovoides, estaban dispuestas de forma más oblicua a la epidermis y eran más cortas, estrechas y rectilíneas en la dermis papilar. Para las fibras de colágeno detectamos que formaban haces más redondeados, estaban dispuestos de forma más perpendicular a la epidermis y eran más cortos, estrechos y ondulados en la dermis papilar. Conclusiones: La cuantificación objetiva de células y fibras de la matriz extracelular en imágenes microscópicas digitalizadas proporciona una herramienta rápida, fiable y discriminativa que puede ser útil para numerosos estudios cutáneos. Palabras Clave: Herida - Cicatrización - Estudio Histológico - Piel

Systems Radiology and Personalized Medicine

Medicine has evolved into a high level of specialization using the very detailed imaging of organs. This has impressively solved a multitude of acute health-related problems linked to single-organ diseases. Many diseases and pathophysiological processes, however, involve more than one organ. An organ-based approach is challenging when considering disease prevention and caring for elderly patients, or those with systemic chronic diseases or multiple co-morbidities. In addition, medical imaging provides more than a pretty picture. Much of the data are now revealed by quantitating algorithms with or without artificial intelligence. This Special Issue on “Systems Radiology and Personalized Medicine” includes reviews and original studies that show the strengths and weaknesses of structural and functional whole-body imaging for personalized medicine

Non-parametric and integrated framework for segmenting and counting neuroblastic cells within neuroblastoma tumor images

Neuroblastoma is a malignant tumor and a cancer in childhood that derives from the neural crest. The number of neuroblastic cells within the tumor provides significant prognostic information for pathologists. An enormous number of neuroblastic cells makes the process of counting tedious and error-prone. We propose a user interaction-independent framework that segments cellular regions, splits the overlapping cells and counts the total number of single neuroblastic cells. Our novel segmentation algorithm regards an image as a feature space constructed by joint spatial-intensity features of color pixels. It clusters the pixels within the feature space using mean-shift and then partitions the image into multiple tiles. We propose a novel color analysis approach to select the tiles with similar intensity to the cellular regions. The selected tiles contain a mixture of single and overlapping cells. We therefore also propose a cell counting method to analyse morphology of the cells and discriminate between overlapping and single cells. Ultimately, we apply watershed to split overlapping cells. The results have been evaluated by a pathologist. Our segmentation algorithm was compared against adaptive thresholding. Our cell counting algorithm was compared with two state of the art algorithms. The overall cell counting accuracy of the system is 87.65 %. © 2013 International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering

Characterization of alar ligament on 3.0T MRI: a cross-sectional study in IIUM Medical Centre, Kuantan

INTRODUCTION: The main purpose of the study is to compare the normal anatomy of alar ligament on MRI between male and female. The specific objectives are to assess the prevalence of alar ligament visualized on MRI, to describe its characteristics in term of its course, shape and signal homogeneity and to find differences in alar ligament signal intensity between male and female. This study also aims to determine the association between the heights of respondents with alar ligament signal intensity and dimensions. MATERIALS & METHODS: 50 healthy volunteers were studied on 3.0T MR scanner Siemens Magnetom Spectra using 2-mm proton density, T2 and fat-suppression sequences. Alar ligament is depicted in 3 planes and the visualization and variability of the ligament courses, shapes and signal intensity characteristics were determined. The alar ligament dimensions were also measured. RESULTS: Alar ligament was best depicted in coronal plane, followed by sagittal and axial planes. The orientations were laterally ascending in most of the subjects (60%), predominantly oval in shaped (54%) and 67% showed inhomogenous signal. No significant difference of alar ligament signal intensity between male and female respondents. No significant association was found between the heights of the respondents with alar ligament signal intensity and dimensions. CONCLUSION: Employing a 3.0T MR scanner, the alar ligament is best portrayed on coronal plane, followed by sagittal and axial planes. However, tremendous variability of alar ligament as depicted in our data shows that caution needs to be exercised when evaluating alar ligament, especially during circumstances of injury

Case series of breast fillers and how things may go wrong: radiology point of view

INTRODUCTION: Breast augmentation is a procedure opted by women to overcome sagging breast due to breastfeeding or aging as well as small breast size. Recent years have shown the emergence of a variety of injectable materials on market as breast fillers. These injectable breast fillers have swiftly gained popularity among women, considering the minimal invasiveness of the procedure, nullifying the need for terrifying surgery. Little do they know that the procedure may pose detrimental complications, while visualization of breast parenchyma infiltrated by these fillers is also deemed substandard; posing diagnostic challenges. We present a case series of three patients with prior history of hyaluronic acid and collagen breast injections. REPORT: The first patient is a 37-year-old lady who presented to casualty with worsening shortness of breath, non-productive cough, central chest pain; associated with fever and chills for 2-weeks duration. The second patient is a 34-year-old lady who complained of cough, fever and haemoptysis; associated with shortness of breath for 1-week duration. CT in these cases revealed non thrombotic wedge-shaped peripheral air-space densities. The third patient is a 37‐year‐old female with right breast pain, swelling and redness for 2- weeks duration. Previous collagen breast injection performed 1 year ago had impeded sonographic visualization of the breast parenchyma. MRI breasts showed multiple non- enhancing round and oval shaped lesions exhibiting fat intensity. CONCLUSION: Radiologists should be familiar with the potential risks and hazards as well as limitations of imaging posed by breast fillers such that MRI is required as problem-solving tool