Chest Radiographs in Surgical Intensive Care Patients: A Valuable Routine

A total of 411 routine chest films were evaluated to determine their clinical value for surgical intensive care unit patients. There were 138 unexpected findings on 112 chest radiographs. These unexpected findings were equally divided between pulmonary problems (72) and device malposition (66). Of the unexpected findings, 30% were considered potentially life-threatening. On the basis of this study, we recommend routine chest films for monitoring in critically ill surgical intensive care patients

Effect of Motion on the ADC Quantification Accuracy of Whole-Body DWIBS

y Diffusion-weighted whole-body imaging with background body signal subtraction was introduced as a qualitative approach to detecting metastases in the body. A liver-mimicking phantom with embedded tumours that could be moved to replicate respiratory motion was developed to assess its ability to accurately quantify ADC values. RESULTS: Mean tumour ADC values were unaltered by the motion; however, a significant (p \u3c 0.05) increase in the spread of ADC values was measured, even for relatively large tumours. CONCLUSIONS: These findings may be of significance in cancer therapy monitoring where subtle changes in ADC histograms may reveal changes in tumour heterogeneity

What's the best treatment for sebaceous cysts?

Punch biopsy excision appears to be superior to traditional wide elliptical excision for the treatment of sebaceous cysts when intervention is necessary (strength of recommendation [SOR]: B, based on 1 small randomized study). No rigorous metho- dological studies have compared punch biopsy excision of sebaceous cysts with the minimal excision technique

Exploiting the inter-strain divergence of Fusarium oxysporum for microbial bioprocessing of lignocellulose to bioethanol

Microbial bioprocessing of lignocellulose to bioethanol still poses challenges in terms of substrate catabolism. A targeted evolution-based study was undertaken to determine if inter-strain microbial variability could be exploited for bioprocessing of lignocellulose to bioethanol. The microorganism studied was Fusarium oxysporum because of its capacity to both saccharify and ferment lignocellulose. Strains of F. oxysporum were isolated and assessed for their genetic variability. Using optimised solid-state straw culture conditions, experiments were conducted that compared fungal strains in terms of their growth, enzyme activities (cellulases, xylanase and alcohol dehydrogenase) and yield of bioethanol and the undesirable by-products acetic acid and xylitol. Significant inter-strain divergence was recorded in regards to the capacity of studied F. oxysporum strains to produce alcohol from untreated straw. No correlation was observed between bioethanol synthesis and either the biomass production or microbial enzyme activity. A strong correlation was observed between both acetic acid and xylitol production and bioethanol yield. The level of diversity recorded in the alcohol production capacity among closely-related microorganism means that a targeted screening of populations of selected microbial species could greatly improve bioprocessing yields, in terms of providing both new host strains and candidate genes for the bioethanol industry

Quantification of white matter cellularity and damage in preclinical and early symptomatic Alzheimer\u27s disease

Interest in understanding the roles of white matter (WM) inflammation and damage in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer disease (AD) has been growing significantly in recent years. However, in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques for imaging inflammation are still lacking. An advanced diffusion-based MRI method, neuro-inflammation imaging (NII), has been developed to clinically image and quantify WM inflammation and damage in AD. Here, we employed NII measures in conjunction with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarker classification (for β-amyloid (Aβ) and neurodegeneration) to evaluate 200 participants in an ongoing study of memory and aging. Elevated NII-derived cellular diffusivity was observed in both preclinical and early symptomatic phases of AD, while disruption of WM integrity, as detected by decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) and increased radial diffusivity (RD), was only observed in the symptomatic phase of AD. This may suggest that WM inflammation occurs earlier than WM damage following abnormal Aβ accumulation in AD. The negative correlation between NII-derived cellular diffusivity and CSF Aβ42 level (a marker of amyloidosis) may indicate that WM inflammation is associated with increasing Aβ burden. NII-derived FA also negatively correlated with CSF t-tau level (a marker of neurodegeneration), suggesting that disruption of WM integrity is associated with increasing neurodegeneration. Our findings demonstrated the capability of NII to simultaneously image and quantify WM cellularity changes and damage in preclinical and early symptomatic AD. NII may serve as a clinically feasible imaging tool to study the individual and composite roles of WM inflammation and damage in AD. Keywords: Inflammation, White matter damage, Diffusion basis spectrum imaging, Neuro-inflammation imaging, Cerebrospinal fluid, Preclinical Alzheimer disease, Early symptomatic Alzheimer disease, Magnetic resonance imagin