Magnetic Resonance Elastography Reconstruction for Anisotropic Tissues

Elastography has become widely used clinically for characterising changes in soft tissue mechanics that are associated with altered tissue structure and composition. However, some soft tissues, such as muscle, are not isotropic as is assumed in clinical elastography implementations. This limits the ability of these methods to capture changes in anisotropic tissues associated with disease. The objective of this study was to develop and validate a novel elastography reconstruction technique suitable for estimating the linear viscoelastic mechanical properties of transversely isotropic soft tissues. We derived a divergence-free formulation of the governing equations for acoustic wave propagation through a linearly transversely isotropic viscoelastic material, and transformed this into a weak form. This was then implemented into a finite element framework, enabling the analysis of wave input data and tissue structural fibre orientations, in this case based on diffusion tensor imaging. To validate the material constants obtained with this method, numerous in silico phantom experiments were run which encompassed a range of variations in wave input directions, material properties, fibre structure and noise. The method was also tested on ex vivo muscle and in vivo human volunteer calf muscles, and compared with a previous curl-based inversion method. The new method robustly extracted the transversely isotropic shear moduli (G⊥′, G∥′, G″) from the in silico phantom tests with minimal bias, including in the presence of experimentally realistic levels of noise in either fibre orientation or wave data. This new method performed better than the previous method in the presence of noise. Anisotropy estimates from the ex vivo muscle phantom agreed well with rheological tests. In vivo experiments on human calf muscles were able to detect increases in muscle shear moduli with passive muscle stretch. This new reconstruction method can be applied to quantify tissue mechanical properties of anisotropic soft tissues, such as muscle, in health and disease

Liver stiffness values are lower in pediatric subjects than in adults and increase with age: A multifrequency MR elastography study

Purpose: To determine if healthy hepatic mechanical properties differ between pediatric and adult subjects at magnetic resonance (MR) elastography. Materials and Methods: Liver shear moduli in 24 healthy pediatric participants (13 children aged 5-14 years [seven boys, six girls] and 11 adolescents aged 15-18 years [six boys, five girls]) and 10 healthy adults (aged 22-36 years [five men, five women]) were obtained with 3-T MR elastography at 28, 56, and 84 Hz. Relationships between shear moduli and age were assessed with Spearman correlations. Differences between age groups were determined with one-way analysis of variance and Tukey multiple comparisons tests. Results: Liver stiffness values (means ± standard deviations) were significantly lower in children and adolescents than in adults at 56 Hz (children, 2.2 kPa ± 0.3; adolescents, 2.2 kPa ± 0.2; adults, 2.6 kPa ± 0.3; analysis of variance, P = .009) and 84 Hz (children, 5.6 kPa ± 0.8; adolescents, 6.5 kPa ± 1.2; adults, 7.8 kPa ± 1.2; analysis of variance, P = .0003) but not at 28 Hz (children, 1.2 kPa ± 0.2; adolescents, 1.3 kPa ± 0.3; adults, 1.2 kPa ± 0.2; analysis of variance, P = .40). At 56 and 84 Hz, liver stiffness increased with age (Spearman correlation, r = 0.38 [P = .03] and r = 0.54 [P = .001], respectively). Stiffness varied less with frequency in children and adolescents than in adults (analysis of variance, P = .0009). No significant differences were found in shear moduli at 28, 56, or 84 Hz or frequency dependence between children and adolescents (P = .38, P = .99, P = .14, and P = .30, respectively, according to Tukey tests). Conclusion: Liver stiffness values are lower and vary less with frequency in children and adolescents than in adults. Stiffness increases with age during normal development and approaches adult values during adolescence. Comparing pediatric liver stiffness to adult baseline values to detect pediatric liver mechanical abnormalities may not allow detection of mild disease and may lead to underestimation of severity

1007 Analysis of cutaneous microbiota between two age-group of Caucasian women

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Shift in skin microbiota of Western European women across aging

International audienceAims : The objective of our study was to compare the microbiota diversity between two different age groups of Western European women. Methods and Results : Skin‐swab samples were collected directly on the forehead of 34 healthy Western European women: 17 younger (21‐31 years old) and 17 older individuals (54‐69 years old). Bacterial communities were evaluated using the 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Data revealed a higher alpha diversity on the skin of older individuals compared with younger ones. Overall microbiota structure was different between the two age groups, as demonstrated by beta diversity analysis, which also highlighted a high interpersonal variation within older individuals. Furthermore, taxonomic composition analysis showed both an increase in Proteobacteria and a decrease in Actinobacteria on the older skin. At the genus level, older skin exhibited a significant increase in Corynebacterium and a decrease in Propionibacterium relative abundance. Conclusions : Our study revealed a shift in the distribution of skin microbiota during chronological aging in Western European women. Significance and Impact of Study: Altogether these results could become the basis to develop new approaches aiming to rebalance the skin microbiota, which is modified during the aging process

Ferrocenyl glycopeptides as electrochemical probes to detect autoantibodies in multiple sclerosis patients' será

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