Radiological clinical trials: Proposal of a problem-finding questionnaire to improve study success

open5AIM To develop a survey to help define the main problems in radiological clinical trials. METHODS Since 2006, we have managed seven different radio-logical clinical trials recruiting patients in academic and non-academic centres. We developed a preliminary questionnaire using a four-round Delphi approach to identify problems occurring in radiological clinical trials run at our centre. We investigated the recruitment experience, involvement of all multi-disciplinary team members and main obstacles to completing the projects. A final round of Delphi processes elucidated solutions to the identified problems.openValdora, Francesca; Bignotti, Bianca; Calabrese, Massimo; Houssami, Nehmat; Tagliafico, AlbertoValdora, Francesca; Bignotti, Bianca; Calabrese, Massimo; Houssami, Nehmat; Tagliafico, Albert

Local recurrence of soft tissue sarcoma: A radiomic analysis

Background To perform a radiomics analysis in local recurrence (LR) surveillance of limb soft tissue sarcoma (STS) Patients and methods This is a sub-study of a prospective multicenter study with Institutional Review Board approval supported by ESSR (European Society of Musculoskeletal Radiology). radiomics analysis was done on fast spin echo axial T1w, T2w fat saturated and post-contrast T1w (T1wGd) 1.5T MRI images of consecutively recruited patients between March 2016 and September 2018. Results N = 11 adult patients (6 men and 5 women; mean age 57.8 \ub1 17.8) underwent MRI to exclude STS LR: a total of 33 follow-up events were evaluated. A total of 198 data-sets per patients of both pathological and normal tissue were analyzed. Four radiomics features were significantly correlated to tumor size (p < 0.02) and four radiomics features were correlated with grading (p < 0.05). ROC analysis showed an AUC between 0.71 (95%CI: 0.55-0.87) for T1w and 0.96 (95%CI: 0.87-1.00) for post-contrast T1w. Conclusions radiomics features allow to differentiate normal tissue from pathological tissue in MRI surveillance of local recurrence of STS. radiomics in STS evaluation is useful not only for detection purposes but also for lesion characterization

Transcribed-ultra conserved region expression profiling from low-input total RNA

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Ultra Conserved Regions (UCRs) are a class of 481 noncoding sequences located in both intra- and inter-genic regions of the genome. The recent findings that they are significantly altered in adult chronic lymphocytic leukemias, carcinomas, and pediatric neuroblastomas lead to the hypothesis that UCRs may play a role in tumorigenesis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present a novel application of Ribo-SPIA™ isothermal linear amplification of minute RNA quantities for quantifying Transcribed-UCR (T-UCR) expression by quantitative PCR. Direct comparison of non-amplified with amplified cDNA in two neuroblastoma cell lines showed that the amplification approach increases sensitivity and repeatability in T-UCR quantification. It is noteworthy that the Ribo-SPIA™ step allowed us to analyze all 481 T-UCRs by using 150 ng of RNA, while introducing a minimal bias and preserving the magnitude of relative expression. Only the less abundant T-UCRs have high intra-assay variability, consistently with the Poisson distribution statistics and stochastic effects on PCR repeatability.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We demonstrated that the quantification procedure shown here is an accurate and reliable technique for genome-wide non coding gene (i.e., UCRs) profiling using small amounts of RNA. This issue is particularly important because studies of transcription regulation are increasingly conducted in small homogeneous samples, such as laser capture microdissected or sorted cell populations.</p

Evaluation of background parenchymal enhancement on breast MRI: A systematic review

Objective: To perform a systematic review of the methods used for background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) evaluation on breast MRI. Methods: Studies dealing with BPE assessment on breast MRI were retrieved from major medical libraries independently by four reviewers up to 6October 2015. The keywords used for database searching are "background parenchymal enhancement", "parenchymal enhancement", "MRI" and "breast". The studies were included if qualitative and/or quantitative methods for BPE assessment were described. Results: Of the 420 studies identified, a total of 52 articles were included in the systematic review. 28 studies performed only a qualitative assessment of BPE, 13 studies performed only a quantitative assessment and 11 studies performed both qualitative and quantitative assessments. A wide heterogeneity was found in the MRI sequences and in the quantitative methods used for BPE assessment. Conclusion: A wide variability exists in the quantitative evaluation of BPE on breast MRI. More studies focused on a reliable and comparable method for quantitative BPE assessment are needed. Advances in knowledge: More studies focused on a quantitative BPE assessment are needed

Un poco de matemática constructiva

La matematica dejó de ser constructiva cuando se incorporó la utilización de la teoría de conjuntos, y en particular el axioma de elección en demostraciones de existencia. Simultáneamente comenzó a utilizarse el tercero excluido como método de demostración. Recordar que el tercero excluido es el hecho que le da validez a las demostraciones por el absurdo en lógica clásica. Al principio estas técnicas despertaron mucha desconfianza, y lo que hoy se acepta sin la menor objeción fue altamente cuestionado por la escuela intuicionista