Epiluminescence microscopy for port-wine staine pretreatment evaluation.

Background: Port-wine stains (PWSs) are characterized by an increased number of ectatic vessels. The treatment of choice is the use of some lasers such as pulsed dye lasers. However, some lesions are nonresponsive to laser treatment. Perhaps the vessels' depth and diameter and the thickness of the vessel wall are important factors influencing the effectiveness of the laser treatment. Methods: To investigate whether epiluminescence microscopy (ELM) could be useful in determining the effectiveness of laser treatment of PWSs, we studied a group of patients with PWSs using both ELM and histological analysis. Results: A correlation existed between a gray-whitish veil seen by ELM and the vessel depth judged by histology: when the veil was absent, the vessels were always found to be located only in the upper third of the dermis. Conclusion: We think that the gray-whitish veil is a distinctive dermoscopic feature that is able to differentiate between superficial vessels (absence of veil) and deeper vessels (presence of veil)

Efficacy of Narrowband UVB Phototherapy in Erythema Dyschromicum Perstans Treatment: Case Reports

No abstract availabl

Hashimoto Thyroiditis in Primary Thyroid Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

OBJECTIVES: To assess the prevalence of Hashimoto thyroiditis (HT) in primary thyroid lymphoma (PTL) and whether it differs between mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). METHODS: Electronic databases were searched for studies assessing HT prevalence in PTL, based on antithyroid antibodies, clinical history, or pathology. Pooled prevalence of HT and its association with histotype (MALT or DLBCL) were calculated. RESULTS: Thirty-eight studies with 1,346 PTLs were included. Pooled prevalence results were 78.9% (any HT evidence), 65.3% (antithyroid antibodies), 41.7% (clinical history), and 64% (pathology). HT prevalence was significantly higher in MALT lymphoma than in DLBCL (P = .007) and in mixed DLBCL/MALT than in pure DLBCL (P = .002). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, 78.9% of patients with PTL have any HT evidence, but only half of these had been clinically followed. The difference in HT prevalence suggests that a subset of DLBCL may not derive from MALT lymphoma

Perioperative characterization of anastomotic doughnuts with high-resolution probe-based confocal laser endomicroscopy in colorectal cancer surgery: a feasibility study.

BACKGROUND: Confocal laser enables in vivo real-time histopathology of the mucosa layer of gastrointestinal tract. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility and the role of probe-based confocal laser endomicroscopy in extemporary examination of staple rings of patients with colorectal cancer. METHODS: This was a prospective, single-center pilot study. Patients who underwent end-to-end stapled surgical resection for colorectal cancer were included. Confocal imaging was analyzed with great attention to image quality evaluation of cellular morphology and cellular structures of the serosal, muscular, and mucosal layers of the doughnuts than comparing results with definitive histopathology. RESULTS: Twenty-six doughnuts were analyzed. Real-time video sequences were obtained in all patients, with a total of 204 mosaic images. For each doughnut, most of the images were adequate for evaluation of cellular morphology and cellular structure of the serosal, muscular, and mucosal layers. CONCLUSIONS: Perioperative assessment of doughnut tissues in patients with colorectal cancer by confocal laser endomicroscopy is feasible and safe. Prospective studies are warranted for further evaluation of the clinical impact of this technology during surgery

Deep learning-based pixel-wise lesion segmentation on oral squamous cell carcinoma images

Oral squamous cell carcinoma is the most common oral cancer. In this paper, we present a performance analysis of four different deep learning-based pixel-wise methods for lesion segmentation on oral carcinoma images. Two diverse image datasets, one for training and another one for testing, are used to generate and evaluate the models used for segmenting the images, thus allowing to assess the generalization capability of the considered deep network architectures. An important contribution of this work is the creation of the Oral Cancer Annotated (ORCA) dataset, containing ground-truth data derived from the well-known Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset

Cutting-edge Innovations in Cardiac Health: Galvanic Insights from a Clinician-Scientist, Dr. Benjamin Hibbert

Dr. Benjamin Hibbert, MD, PhD, FRCPC is an interventional cardiologist, an assistant professor, as well as the director of the Vascular Biology and Experimental Medicine Laboratory at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute (UOHI). With a focus on performing revolutionary bench-to-bedside  research, Dr. Hibbert’s clinical and basic science research interests include the development of novel cardiac biomarkers, elucidating the mechanisms that underlie pathological arterial remodelling in transplant vasculopathy, and the pharmacodynamics of adjuvant  antiplatelet and antithrombotic agents in cardiac disease. We had the privilege of speaking with Dr. Hibbert about his career path, research experiences, and perspectives on the importance of the clinician-investigator program in training the oncoming generation of clinician-scientists