CT and MRI Aspects of an Abdominal Hemophilic Pseudotumor

We report the computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) aspects of a rare case of a patient with a large abdominal hemophilic pseudotumor, a chronic, encapsulated, slowly expanding hematoma occurring in severe hemophilia, without involvement of iliopsoas muscles and iliac bones

Illustration of a fatal radiation-induced lung aneurysm: Is central lung stereotactic radiotherapy to be banned?

Stereotactic body radiation therapy is still controversial for inoperable patients with central lung lesion. We report the case of a 59-year-old woman with previous history of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma who was treated by lung stereotactic body irradiation for an inoperable lymph node in station 10R. One year after, a fibroscopy showed a necrosis of the right main bronchus mucosae and the CT showed a radio-induced aneurysm protruding into the right inferior lobular bronchus. The patient eventually died a few hours later with a massive haemoptysis. This case highlights the potential toxicity of central lung stereotactic body radiation therapy and raises the question of its legitimacy

Complete tumor response of a locally advanced lung large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma after palliative thoracic radiotherapy and immunotherapy with nivolumab.

Lung large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (L-LCNEC) is a rare subset of lung carcinoma associated with poor overall survival. Due to its rarity, little has been established about its optimal treatment in the advanced stage. We report the case of a 41-year-old woman diagnosed with an unresectable locally advanced L-LCNEC who presented an impressive tumor response to immunotherapy with nivolumab after non-curative thoracic radiotherapy. Salvage surgery was then performed, and pathologic analysis of the resected piece revealed the absence of residual viable tumor cells. Based on this case report, we discuss the literature regarding the efficacy of inhibitors of programmed death-1 protein (PD-1) in L-LCNEC and their use in association with radiotherapy and in the neoadjuvant setting

Treatment and Prognosis of Patients with Lung Cancer and Combined Interstitial Lung Disease.

Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is associated with a higher lung cancer (LC) risk and may impact cancer's clinical characteristics, treatment strategies, and outcomes. This impact's extent is unclear, particularly in Caucasians. In this retrospective observational study, we reviewed the files of all LC patients diagnosed in a 38-month period. Expert radiologists reviewed the computed tomography scans performed at diagnosis. Patients with LC and ILD ( = 29, 7%) were compared to those without ILD ( = 363, 93%) for population and cancer characteristics, treatments, and clinical outcomes. Patients with LC and ILD were older (73 ± 8 vs. 65 ± 11 years; < 0.001). There was no significant difference in LC histology, localization, stage, or treatment modalities. The respiratory complication rate after cancer treatment was significantly higher in the ILD group (39% vs. 6%; < 0.01). Overall survival rates were similar at 12 (52% vs. 59%; = 0.48) and 24 months (41% vs. 45%; = 0.64) but poorer in the ILD group at 36 months, although not statistically significant (9% vs. 39%; = 0.06). The ILD group had a higher probability of death (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.49 [0.96;2.27]), but this was not statistically significant ( = 0.06). In a Cox regression model, patients with ILD treated surgically had a significantly higher mortality risk (HR = 2.37 [1.1;5.09]; = 0.03). Patients with combined LC and ILD have worse clinical outcomes even when similar treatment modalities are offered

OptiC: Robust and Automatic Spinal Cord Localization on a Large Variety of MRI Data Using a Distance Transform Based Global Optimization

International audienceLocalizing the center of the spinal cord on MR images is a critical step toward fully automated and robust quantitative analysis, which is essential to achieve clinical utilization. While automatic localization of the spinal cord might appear as a simple task, that has already been addressed extensively, it is much more challenging to achieve this across the large variation in MRI contrasts, field of view, resolutions and pathologies. In this study, we introduce a novel method, called “OptiC”, to automatically and robustly localize the spinal cord on a large variety of MRI data. Starting from a localization map computed by a linear Support Vector Machine trained with Histogram of Oriented Gradient features, the center of the spinal cord is localized by solving an optimization problem, that introduces a trade-off between the localization map and the cord continuity along the superior-inferior axis. The OptiC algorithm features an efficient search (with a linear complexity in the number of voxels) and ensures the global minimum is reached. OptiC was compared to a recently-published method based on the Hough transform using a broad range of MRI data, involving 13 different centers, 3 contrasts (T2-weighted n=278, T1-weighted n=112 and T∗2-weighted n=263), with a total of 441 subjects, including 133 patients with traumatic and neurodegenerative diseases. Overall, OptiC was able to find 98.5% of the gold-standard centerline coverage, with a mean square error of 1.21 mm, suggesting that OptiC could reliably be used for subsequent analyses tasks, such as cord segmentation, opening the door to more robust analysis in patient population

Automatic spinal cord localization, robust to MRI contrasts using global curve optimization

International audienceDuring the last two decades, MRI has been increasingly used for providing valuable quantitative information about spinal cord morphometry, such as quantification of the spinal cord atrophy in various diseases. However, despite the significant improvement of MR sequences adapted to the spinal cord, automatic image processing tools for spinal cord MRI data are not yet as developed as for the brain. There is nonetheless great interest in fully automatic and fast processing methods to be able to propose quantitative analysis pipelines on large datasets without user bias. The first step of most of these analysis pipelines is to detect the spinal cord, which is challenging to achieve automatically across the broad range of MRI contrasts, field of view, resolutions and pathologies. In this paper, a fully automated, robust and fast method for detecting the spinal cord centerline on MRI volumes is introduced.The algorithm uses a global optimization scheme that attempts to strike a balance between a probabilistic localization map of the spinal cord center point and the overall spatial consistency of the spinal cord centerline (i.e. the rostro-caudal continuity of the spinal cord). Additionally, a new post-processing feature, which aims to automatically split brain and spine regions is introduced, to be able to detect a consistent spinal cord centerline, independently from the field of view. We present data on the validation of the proposed algorithm, known as “OptiC”, from a large dataset involving 20 centers, 4 contrasts (T2-weighted n = 287, T1-weighted n = 120, T2∗-weighted n = 307, diffusion-weighted n = 90), 501 subjects including 173 patients with a variety of neurologic diseases. Validation involved the gold-standard centerline coverage, the mean square error between the true and predicted centerlines and the ability to accurately separate brain and spine regions.Overall, OptiC was able to cover 98.77% of the gold-standard centerline, with a mean square error of 1.02 mm. OptiC achieved superior results compared to a state-of-the-art spinal cord localization technique based on the Hough transform, especially on pathological cases with an averaged mean square error of 1.08 mm vs. 13.16 mm (Wilcoxon signed-rank test p-value < .01). Images containing brain regions were identified with a 99% precision, on which brain and spine regions were separated with a distance error of 9.37 mm compared to ground-truth.Validation results on a challenging dataset suggest that OptiC could reliably be used for subsequent quantitative analyses tasks, opening the door to more robust analysis on pathological cases

Microvascular flow alterations in critically ill COVID-19 patients: A prospective study.

BackgroundData on microcirculatory pattern of COVID-19 critically ill patients are scarce. The objective was to compare sublingual microcirculation parameters of critically ill patients according to the severity of the disease.MethodsThe study is a single-center prospective study with critically ill COVID-19 patients admitted in ICU. Sublingual microcirculation was assessed by IDF microscopy within 48 hours of ICU admission. Microcirculatory flow index (MFI), proportion of perfused vessel (PPV), total vessel density (TVD), De Backer score (DBS), perfused vessel density (PVD) and heterogeneity index (HI) were assessed. Patients were divided in 2 groups (severe and critical) according to the World health organization definition.FindingsFrom 19th of March to 7th of April 2020, 43 patients were included. Fourteen patients (33%) were in the severe group and twenty-nine patients (67%) in the critical group. Patients in the critical group were all mechanically ventilated. The critical group had significantly higher values of MFI, DBS and PVD in comparison to severe group (respectively, PaCO2: 49 [44-45] vs 36 [33-37] mmHg; pConclusionCritical COVID-19 patients under mechanical ventilation seem to have higher red blood cell velocity than severe non-ventilated patients

Enteral versus parenteral early nutrition in ventilated adults with shock : a randomised, controlled, multicentre, open-label, parallel-group study (NUTRIREA-2)

International audienceBackgroundWhether the route of early feeding affects outcomes of patients with severe critical illnesses is controversial. We hypothesised that outcomes were better with early first-line enteral nutrition than with early first-line parenteral nutrition.MethodsIn this randomised, controlled, multicentre, open-label, parallel-group study (NUTRIREA-2 trial) done at 44 French intensive-care units (ICUs), adults (18 years or older) receiving invasive mechanical ventilation and vasopressor support for shock were randomly assigned (1:1) to either parenteral nutrition or enteral nutrition, both targeting normocaloric goals (20–25 kcal/kg per day), within 24 h after intubation. Randomisation was stratified by centre using permutation blocks of variable sizes. Given that route of nutrition cannot be masked, blinding of the physicians and nurses was not feasible. Patients receiving parenteral nutrition could be switched to enteral nutrition after at least 72 h in the event of shock resolution (no vasopressor support for 24 consecutive hours and arterial lactate <2 mmol/L). The primary endpoint was mortality on day 28 after randomisation in the intention-to-treat-population. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01802099.FindingsAfter the second interim analysis, the independent Data Safety and Monitoring Board deemed that completing patient enrolment was unlikely to significantly change the results of the trial and recommended stopping patient recruitment. Between March 22, 2013, and June 30, 2015, 2410 patients were enrolled and randomly assigned; 1202 to the enteral group and 1208 to the parenteral group. By day 28, 443 (37%) of 1202 patients in the enteral group and 422 (35%) of 1208 patients in the parenteral group had died (absolute difference estimate 2·0%; [95% CI −1·9 to 5·8]; p=0·33). Cumulative incidence of patients with ICU-acquired infections did not differ between the enteral group (173 [14%]) and the parenteral group (194 [16%]; hazard ratio [HR] 0·89 [95% CI 0·72–1·09]; p=0·25). Compared with the parenteral group, the enteral group had higher cumulative incidences of patients with vomiting (406 [34%] vs 246 [20%]; HR 1·89 [1·62–2·20]; p<0·0001), diarrhoea (432 [36%] vs 393 [33%]; 1·20 [1·05–1·37]; p=0·009), bowel ischaemia (19 [2%] vs five [<1%]; 3·84 [1·43–10·3]; p=0·007), and acute colonic pseudo-obstruction (11 [1%] vs three [<1%]; 3·7 [1·03–13·2; p=0·04).InterpretationIn critically ill adults with shock, early isocaloric enteral nutrition did not reduce mortality or the risk of secondary infections but was associated with a greater risk of digestive complications compared with early isocaloric parenteral nutrition.FundingLa Roche-sur-Yon Departmental Hospital and French Ministry of Health.Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved