Apparent wall thickening of cystic renal lesions on MRI

Purpose To show that cystic renal lesions that would otherwise meet criteria for simple cysts can demonstrate perceptible walls or increased wall thickness on MRI, sometimes causing these lesions to be “upgraded.” It was hypothesized that thickening of cyst walls on MRI can be artifactual, due to data truncation, applied filtering, and low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Materials and Methods k-Space data for a 4-cm cyst were created in a 40-cm field of view (FOV) (512 × 512 matrix). Additional data sets were created using the central 512 × 256 and 512 × 128 points. Noise was simulated so that the cyst SNR was approximately 7, 14, and 20, respectively. Actual wall thickness was set at 0.25 mm, and cyst:wall signal at 1:4. An inverse two-dimensional (2D) fast Fourier transform (FFT) yielded simulated images. A Fermi filter was applied to reduce ringing. Images/projections were examined for wall thickening. Seven patients with initially thick-walled cysts on fat-saturated spoiled gradient-echo (FS-SPGR) images were scanned with increasing resolution (256 × 128 and 256 × 256; four patients were also scanned with 512 × 512). Average wall thickness at each resolution was compared using a two-tailed paired Student's t -test. Results Simulations showed apparent wall thickening at low resolution, improving with higher resolutions. Low SNR and application of the Fermi filter made it difficult to identify ringing as the cause of this thickening. The simulation results were confirmed on seven patients, whose cyst walls proved to be artifactually thickened ( P < 0.01). Conclusion Thickening of cyst walls on MRI can be artifactual. Upon encountering thick-walled cystic renal lesions, high-resolution images can be acquired to exclude apparent thickening. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2008;28103–110. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60469/1/21376_ftp.pd

Between the Domestic and the Foreign: Centering the Nation\u27s Edges. Book Review Of: Legal Borderlands: Law and the Construction of American Boarders. Mary L. Dudziak and Leti Volpp, Eds.

Book review: Legal Borderlands: Law and the Construction of American Boarders. Mary L. Dudziak and Leti Volpp, eds. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2006. Pp. viii+ 421. Reviewed by: Linda Bosnia

Nova krajnska in Breznikova stoletna pratika

Začetki prve slovenske pratike, ki je izhajala periodično, segajo vsaj v leto 1725, ko je ljubljanski tiskar Janez Jurij Mayr založil in natisnil Novo krajnsko pratiko za leto 1726, prva ohranjena pa je iz leta 1741. Zahtevnejša, obsežnejša in vsebinsko bogatejša slovenska pratika na prelomu stoletij je bila Večna pratika od gospodarstva Antona Breznika, ki je prvič izšla leta 1789 (zatem še v več izdajah) in velja za prvo pravo gospodarsko pratiko v slovenskem jeziku. The beginnings of the first Slovene almanac published periodically dates back at least to 1725, when the Ljubljana printer Janez Jurij Mayr published and printed the Nova krajnska pratika for 1726, while the first preserved copy dates back to 1741. The more demanding, extensive and richer Slovene almanac at the turn of the century was Večna pratika gospodarstva by Anton Breznik, which was first published in 1789 (then in several editions) and is considered the first true economic almanac in the Slovene language

Pomegranate extract inhibits EMT in clear cell renal cell carcinoma in a NF-κB and JNK dependent manner.

Objective:Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common subtype of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and is characterized by biallelic inactivation of the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor gene. One effect of VHL inactivation is hypoxia inducible factor alpha (HIFα)-independent constitutive activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) and c-jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). Both NF-κB and JNK drive ccRCC growth and epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT). The purpose of this study was to determine the biochemical effects of pomegranate juice extracts (PE) on RCC cell lines. Methods:The pre-clinical effects of PE on NF-κB, JNK, and the EMT phenotype were assayed, including its effect on proliferation, anchorage-independent growth, and invasion of pVHL-deficient RCCs. Results:PE inhibits the NF-κB and JNK pathways and consequently inhibits the EMT phenotype of pVHL-deficient ccRCCs. The effects of PE are concentration-dependent and affect not only biochemical markers of EMT (i.e., cadherin expression) but also functional manifestations of EMT, such as invasion. These effects are manifested within days of exposure to PE when diluted 2000-fold. Highly dilute concentrations of PE (106 dilution), which do not impact these pathways in the short term, were found to have NF-κB and JNK inhibitory effects and ability to reverse the EMT phenotype following prolonged exposure. Conclusion:These findings suggest that PE may mediate inhibition growth of pVHL-deficient ccRCCs and raises the possibility of its use as a dietary adjunct to managing patients with active surveillance for small, localized, incidentally identified renal tumors so as to avoid more invasive procedures such as nephrectomy