A systematic review of 3-D printing in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases

Objective: The application of 3-D printing has been increasingly used in medicine, with research showing many applications in cardiovascular disease. This systematic review analyzes those studies published about the applications of 3-D printed, patient-specific models in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Methods: A search of PubMed/Medline and Scopus databases was performed to identify studies investigating the 3-D printing in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. Only studies based on patient’s medical images were eligible for review, while reports on in vitro phantom or review articles were excluded. Results: A total of 48 studies met selection criteria for inclusion in the review. A range of patient-specific 3-D printed models of different cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases were generated in these studies with most of them being developed using cardiac CT and MRI data, less commonly with 3-D invasive angiographic or echocardiographic images. The review of these studies showed high accuracy of 3-D printed, patient-specific models to represent complex anatomy of the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular system and depict various abnormalities, especially congenital heart diseases and valvular pathologies. Further, 3-D printing can serve as a useful education tool for both parents and clinicians, and a valuable tool for pre-surgical planning and simulation. Conclusion: This systematic review shows that 3-D printed models based on medical imaging modalities can accurately replicate complex anatomical structures and pathologies of the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular system. 3-D printing is a useful tool for both education and surgical planning in these diseases

Investigation of the Clinical Value of Four Visualization Modalities for Congenital Heart Disease

Diagnosing congenital heart disease (CHD) remains challenging because of its complex morphology. Representing the intricate structures of CHD on conventional two-dimensional flat screens is difficult owing to wide variations in the pathologies. Technological advancements, such as three-dimensional-printed heart models (3DPHMs) and virtual reality (VR), could potentially address the limitations of viewing complex structures using conventional methods. This study aimed to investigate the usefulness and clinical value of four visualization modalities across three different cases of CHD, including ventricular septal defect, double-outlet right ventricle, and tetralogy of Fallot. Seventeen cardiac specialists were invited to participate in this study, which was aimed at assessing the usefulness and clinical value of four visualization modalities, namely, digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) images, 3DPHM, VR, and 3D portable document format (PDF). Out of these modalities, 76.4% of the specialists ranked VR as the best for understanding the spatial associations between cardiac structures and for presurgical planning. Meanwhile, 94.1% ranked 3DPHM as the best modality for communicating with patients and their families. Of the various visualization modalities, VR was the best tool for assessing anatomical locations and vessels, comprehending the spatial relationships between cardiac structures, and presurgical planning. The 3DPHM models were the best tool for medical education as well as communication. In summary, both 3DPHM and VR have their own advantages and outperform the other two modalities, i.e., DICOM images and 3D PDF, in terms of visualizing and managing CHD

Quantitative assessment of 3D printed model accuracy in delineating the normal heart anatomy based on in vitro phantom experiments

Background Although the diagnosis of heart disease has improved with the rapid development of scanning techniques such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and echocardiography, there are still limitations in diagnosing patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) due to its complex morphology. Aims The aim of this study is to use a preserved pig heart for conducting phantom experiments and creating a highly accurate 3D model using 3D printing technique. Methods A palatinate pig heart was used in the phantom experiments to investigate the accuracy of the 3D printed model in comparison with the CT images and 3D segmentation files as well as the real object of the pig’s heart.Results Eight comparisons and scatter plots were generated from six different datasets consisting of pig heart, 3D printed model, two standard tessellation language (STL) files and two CT images data. A strong correlation (r=0.99) was noted in each scatter plot while pig heart and 3D printed model averaging 0.21mm in difference. Conclusion This study has shown that the 3D model which was printed with a pig heart has high accuracy in replicating normal cardiac anatomy

Efficient D2D Discovery Scheme for Channel Measurement of Interference Alignment

Device-to-device (D2D) communications have the potential to improve spectrum efficiency and link capacity by allowing nearby devices to communicate directly with each other on the licensed frequency bands. Hence, co-channel interference (CCI) among D2D users are major issues to be solved when they are utilizing the same frequency bands. Consequently, interference alignment (IA) as an effective interference management approach has been implemented to the D2D communications for the frequency sharing. However, the measurement of channel state information (CSI) between transmitter and receiver of a D2D pair and cross-channel state information (C-CSI) among D2D pairs are the major issues that need to be resolved for the implementation of IA from theory to practical. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an effective D2D discovery scheme to overcome this problem, which can measure the CSI and C-CSI based on the transmission of discovery messages. Simulation results show that, under perfect conditions, even though the proposed D2D discovery scheme increases the needed time slots to establish D2D communications compared with the conventional D2D discovery without considering IA by 6.2%, it increases the throughput up to 50% than the conventional D2D communications without considering IA, i.e., it improves the spectrum efficiency.

Cellular cholesterol delivery, intracellular processing and utilization for biosynthesis of steroid hormones

Steroid hormones regulate diverse physiological functions such as reproduction, blood salt balance, maintenance of secondary sexual characteristics, response to stress, neuronal function and various metabolic processes. They are synthesized from cholesterol mainly in the adrenal gland and gonads in response to tissue-specific tropic hormones. These steroidogenic tissues are unique in that they require cholesterol not only for membrane biogenesis, maintenance of membrane fluidity and cell signaling, but also as the starting material for the biosynthesis of steroid hormones. It is not surprising, then, that cells of steroidogenic tissues have evolved with multiple pathways to assure the constant supply of cholesterol needed to maintain optimum steroid synthesis. The cholesterol utilized for steroidogenesis is derived from a combination of sources: 1) de novo synthesis in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER); 2) the mobilization of cholesteryl esters (CEs) stored in lipid droplets through cholesteryl ester hydrolase; 3) plasma lipoprotein-derived CEs obtained by either LDL receptor-mediated endocytic and/or SR-BI-mediated selective uptake; and 4) in some cultured cell systems from plasma membrane-associated free cholesterol. Here, we focus on recent insights into the molecules and cellular processes that mediate the uptake of plasma lipoprotein-derived cholesterol, events connected with the intracellular cholesterol processing and the role of crucial proteins that mediate cholesterol transport to mitochondria for its utilization for steroid hormone production. In particular, we discuss the structure and function of SR-BI, the importance of the selective cholesterol transport pathway in providing cholesterol substrate for steroid biosynthesis and the role of two key proteins, StAR and PBR/TSO in facilitating cholesterol delivery to inner mitochondrial membrane sites, where P450scc (CYP11A) is localized and where the conversion of cholesterol to pregnenolone (the common steroid precursor) takes place

Adaptive Resource Allocation Algorithm in Wireless Access Network

Wireless network state varies with the surrounding environment, however, the existing resource allocation algorithm cannot adapt to the varying network state, which results to the underutilization of frequency and power resource. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an adaptive resource allocation algorithm which can efficiently adapt to the varying network state by building an optimal mathematical model and then changing the weighted value of the objective function. Furthermore, the optimal allocation of subcarrier and power is derived by using the Lagrange dual decomposition and the subgradient method. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can adaptively allocate the resource to the users according to the varying user density which represents the network state

支払い意思による外洋生態系サービスの価値評価に関する研究

学位の種別: 課程博士審査委員会委員 : (主査)東京大学教授 古谷 研, 東京大学教授 黒倉 寿, 東京大学准教授 高橋 一生, 東京大学准教授 八木 信行, 東京大学講師 杉山 昌広University of Tokyo(東京大学

Similarity Principle and its Acoustical Verification

This study finds a similarity principle the waves emanated from the same source are similar to each other as long as two wave receivers are close enough to each other the closer to each other the wave receivers are the more similar to each other the received waves are We define the similarity mathematically and verify the similarity principle by acoustical experiment