A color flow tract in ultrasound-guided random renal core biopsy predicts complications

OBJECTIVES: To determine patient and procedural risk factors for major complications in ultrasound (US)-guided random renal core biopsy. METHODS: Random renal biopsies performed by radiologists in the US department at a single institution between 2014 and 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. The patient\u27s age, sex, race, and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) were recorded. The biopsy approach, needle gauge, length of cores, number of throws, and presence of a color flow tract were recorded. Outcome data included minor and major complications. Associations between variables were tested with χ RESULTS: A total of 231 biopsies (167 native and 64 allografts) were reviewed. There was no significant difference in the sex, age, race, or eGFR between native and allograft groups. The overall rate for any complication was 18.2%, with a 4.3% rate of major complications, which was significantly greater in native compared to allograft biopsies (6% versus 0%; P = .045). A risk analysis in native biopsies only showed that major complications were significantly associated with a low eGFR such that patients with stage 4 or 5 kidney disease had higher odds of complications (odds ratio [95% confidence interval]: stage 4, 9.405 [1.995-44.338]; P = .0393; stage 5, 10.749 [2.218-52.080]; P = .0203) than patients with normal function (eGFR \u3e60 mL/min). The presence of a color flow tract portended a 10.7 times greater risk of having any complication (95% confidence interval, 4.595-24.994; P \u3c .001). Other procedural factors were not significantly associated with complications. CONCLUSIONS: There is an increased risk of major complications in US-guided random native kidney biopsy in patients with a low eGFR (\u3c30 mL/min) and a patent color flow tract in the immediate postbiopsy setting

Patient specific ankle-foot orthoses using rapid prototyping

Background Prefabricated orthotic devices are currently designed to fit a range of patients and therefore they do not provide individualized comfort and function. Custom-fit orthoses are superior to prefabricated orthotic devices from both of the above-mentioned standpoints. However, creating a custom-fit orthosis is a laborious and time-intensive manual process performed by skilled orthotists. Besides, adjustments made to both prefabricated and custom-fit orthoses are carried out in a qualitative manner. So both comfort and function can potentially suffer considerably. A computerized technique for fabricating patient-specific orthotic devices has the potential to provide excellent comfort and allow for changes in the standard design to meet the specific needs of each patient. Methods In this paper, 3D laser scanning is combined with rapid prototyping to create patient-specific orthoses. A novel process was engineered to utilize patient-specific surface data of the patient anatomy as a digital input, manipulate the surface data to an optimal form using Computer Aided Design (CAD) software, and then download the digital output from the CAD software to a rapid prototyping machine for fabrication. Results Two AFOs were rapidly prototyped to demonstrate the proposed process. Gait analysis data of a subject wearing the AFOs indicated that the rapid prototyped AFOs performed comparably to the prefabricated polypropylene design. Conclusions The rapidly prototyped orthoses fabricated in this study provided good fit of the subject's anatomy compared to a prefabricated AFO while delivering comparable function (i.e. mechanical effect on the biomechanics of gait). The rapid fabrication capability is of interest because it has potential for decreasing fabrication time and cost especially when a replacement of the orthosis is required

Outdoor Electroluminescence Acquisition Using a Movable Testbed

The experimentation with a movable outdoor electroluminescence (EL) testbed is performed in this work. For EL inspections of PV power plants, the fastest scenario will include the use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) performing image acquisition in continuous motion. With this motivation, we investigate the EL image quality of an acquisition in motion and the extent of image processing required to correct scene displacement. The results show processed EL images with a high level of information even when acquired at 1 m/s camera speed and at frame rate of 120 fps.</p

Molecular basis of USP7 inhibition by selective small-molecule inhibitors

Ubiquitination controls the stability of most cellular proteins, and its deregulation contributes to human diseases including cancer. Deubiquitinases remove ubiquitin from proteins, and their inhibition can induce the degradation of selected proteins, potentially including otherwise 'undruggable' targets. For example, the inhibition of ubiquitin-specific protease 7 (USP7) results in the degradation of the oncogenic E3 ligase MDM2, and leads to re-activation of the tumour suppressor p53 in various cancers. Here we report that two compounds, FT671 and FT827, inhibit USP7 with high affinity and specificity in vitro and within human cells. Co-crystal structures reveal that both compounds target a dynamic pocket near the catalytic centre of the auto-inhibited apo form of USP7, which differs from other USP deubiquitinases. Consistent with USP7 target engagement in cells, FT671 destabilizes USP7 substrates including MDM2, increases levels of p53, and results in the transcription of p53 target genes, induction of the tumour suppressor p21, and inhibition of tumour growth in mice

Fractal snowflake domain diffusion with boundary and interior drifts

We study a (elliptic measurable coefficients) diffusion in the classical snowflake domain in the situation when there are diffusion and drift terms not only in the interior but also on the fractal boundary, which is a union of three copies of the classical Koch curve. In this example we can combine the fractal membrane analysis, the vector analysis for local Dirichlet forms and quasilinear PDE and SPDE on fractals, non-symmetric Dirichlet forms, and analysis of Lipschitz functions. We show that intrinsic derivatives on the fractal can be defined in a certain point-wise sense, and that an weakly self-similar family globally Lipschitz functions are dense in the Domain of the Dirichlet form. (

Magnetostatic problems in fractal domains

We consider a magnetostatic problem in a three-dimensional “cylindrical” domain of Koch type. We prove existence and uniqueness results for both the fractal and pre-fractal problems and we investigate the convergence of the pre-fractal solutions to the limit fractal one. We consider the numerical approximation of the pre-fractal problems via FEM and we give a priori error estimates. Some numerical simulations are also shown. Our long-term motivation includes studying problems that appear in quantum physics in fractal domains