Iron deposition in autopsied liver on patients receiving long-term TPN

Background Vitamins and minerals are routinely administered by total parenteral nutrition (TPN). However, in Japan, adjustments in iron dosage are difficult because blended mineral preparations are often used. It is therefore unclear whether the iron content is appropriate in cases of long-term TPN. The aim of the study was to assess the influence of iron administration by long-term TPN on iron deposition in post-mortem liver samples isolated from older deceased patients. Methods Liver tissues were collected from post-mortem autopsies of 187 patients over a period of 15 years. Samples were stained with Prussian blue and histologically evaluated from Grade 0–V by at least three different observers. Specimens with positive and negative iron staining were compared, and positive samples were grouped according to the level and distribution of the staining. Post-mortem blood obtained from the subclavian vein during autopsy was also analysed. Samples were collected for the measurement of unsaturated serum iron, serum iron, albumin, prealbumin, hepcidin, and IL-6 concentrations. Results Iron accumulation in the liver was significantly higher in male patients (p = 0.005) with a history of surgery (p = 0.044) or central vein administration of iron (p<0.001). Additionally, the duration of TPN in the iron-positive group was significantly longer than in the iron-negative group (p = 0.038). Serum analysis revealed that unsaturated serum iron was significantly higher in the iron-negative group and that ferritin and serum iron were significantly higher in the iron-positive group. No other statistically significant differences were observed between the two groups. Conclusions Chronic intravenous administration of iron was associated with iron deposition in the liver, even when given the minimum recommended dosage. In long-term TPN patients, the iron dose should therefore be carefully considered

Focussed Color Intersection with Efficient Searching for Object Detection and Image Retrieval

Similarity of color histograms is an important cue for detecting colored objects in complex scenes. It is employed in several applications such as image retrieval, object detection, tracking etc. Focussed color intersection efficiently matches the model against parts of the scene using histogram intersection. We propose an upper bound pruning technique which increases the efficiency of searching for a match by concentrating on more promising regions in the image. 1. Introduction Detecting the presence of a query image in a stored scene is the central task in content based retrieval. Several features are employed for accomplishing this task [2, 9, 13]. Color similarity is one of the more common and important feature adopted for image retrieval, indexing and/or filtering. The common measures employed for evaluating color similarity are color histogram intersection [10], weighted distance between color histograms [3], average color distance [6] and color adjacency information [7, 1]. Matc..

Development of Microfluidic Plasma Counting System for Small Animal Molecular Imaging Using PET --- Measurement of Small Radioactivity Concentration

[Introduction] The system for uL-ordered blood sampling and plasma radioactiveconcentration measurement, Microfluidic Mouse Plasma Counting System (uFmPC, patent pending), isdeveloping. uFmPC should measure very small radioactivity concentration, from several to hundreds Bq/uL.This study aimed to investigate the accuracy on such small radioactivity concentration. [Method] In uFmPC,blood was sampled using microfluidic technique, and it was stocked in channels on a plastic disc (CD-Well).The blood was then separated by rotating the disc. Because the channels had exact cross-sectional area of0.067 mm2, the volumes of blood and separated plasma could be derived by measurement of the lengthusing a flatbed scanner. The amount of radioactivity was acquired by a storage phosphor screen. In theexperiments, one and three uL of FDG solutions containing the radioactivity ranging from 4 to 128 Bq/uLwere introduced in the channels. The radioactivity was measured using Imaging Plate (IP) and BAS-5000(Fujifilm Corp., Japan) with 120-minute exposure. CD-Well was also scanned by GT-X970 scanner (SeikoEPSON, Japan) in 2400 dpi in order to measure the volume of solution. The activity concentration of givenFDG was compared with a photo-stimulated luminescence value (PSL) derived from uFmPC. [Results andDiscussion] Measured images were shown in Fig. 1: a scanned image (A) and an image from IP (B). Theposition of introduced FDG was detected as shown in (C) with black thick curves, and it was applied to theIP image to read out an amount of radioactivity. (D) was a superimposed image. From 120-minute exposure,the PSL was correlated with the given concentration well (y = 1.8x + 4.4 for 1 uL case and y = 2.1x + 6.6 for3 uL case. r2=1.00 for both cases). We can conclude that the concept of uFmPC had potential to measuresmall radioactivity concentration.2009 World Molecular Imaging Congres

Development of Microfluidic Plasma Counting System for Small Animal Molecular Imaging Using PET - Principle Validation for Blood Transportation System

2009 World Molecular Imaging Congres

Novel system using microliter order sample volume for measuring arterial radioactivity concentrations in whole blood and plasma for mouse PET dynamic study

This study aimed to develop a new system, named CD-Well, for mouse PET dynamic study. CD-Well allows the determination of time-activity curves(TACs) for arterial whole blood and plasma using 2-3 muL of blood per sample;the minute sample size is ideal for studies in small animals. The system has the following merits: (1)measures volume and radioactivity of whole blood and plasma separately; (2) allows measurements at 10 s intervals to capture initial rapid changes in the TAC; and (3) is compact and easy to handle, minimizes blood loss from sampling, and delay and dispersion of the TAC. CD-Well has 36 U-shaped channels. A drop of blood is sampled into the opening of the channel and stored there. After serial sampling is completed, CD-Well is centrifuged and scanned using a flatbed scanner to define the regions of plasma and blood cells. The length measured is converted to volume because the channels have a precise and uniform cross section. Then, CD-Well is exposed to an imaging plate to measure radioactivity. Finally, radioactivityconcentrations are computed. We evaluated the performance of CD-Well in in vitro measurement and in vivo 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose and [11C]2-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4-fluorophenyl) tropane studies. In in vitro evaluation, per cent differences (mean+-SE) from manual measurement were 4.4+-3.6% for whole blood and 4.0+-3.5% for plasma across the typical range of radioactivity measured in mouse dynamic study. In in vivo studies, reasonable TACs were obtained. The peaks were captured well, and the time courses coincided well with the TAC derived from PET imaging of the heart chamber. The total blood loss was less than 200 muL, which had no physiological effect on the mice. CD-Well demonstrates satisfactory performance, and is useful for mouse PETdynamic study