Background and Aim: To develop and validate radiomics signature from non-enhanced computed tomography (CT, NE-RS) to predict the malignancy potential of gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) preoperatively and compare it with radiomics signature from contrast-enhanced CT.Method: A total of 370 GIST patients from four centres were divided into the training, internal validation, and external validation cohort. Minimum redundancy maximum relevance (mRMR) algorithm, and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm were used to filter unstable features. (1) NE-RS and CE-RS were built and compared for the prediction of malignancy potential of GIST using the area under the curve (AUC). (2) The radiomics model, with a combination of tumour size and NE-RS, was also developed.Results: The AUC values were comparable between NE-RS and CE-RS in the training (0.965 versus 0.936; P=0.251), internal validation (0.967 versus 0.960; P=0.801) and external validation (0.941 versus 0.899; P=0.173) cohorts in diagnosis of high malignancy potential of GISTs. We next focused on the NE-RS. With 0.185 selected as the cut-off of NE-RS for diagnosis of the malignancy potential of GISTs, accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity for diagnosis high-malignancy potential GIST was 90.0, 88.2, and 92.3%, respectively, in the training cohort; 89.1, 94.9, and 80.0%, respectively, in the internal validation cohort; and 84.6, 76.1, and 91.0%, respectively, in the external cohort. Compared with only NE-RS, the radiomics model increased the sensitivity in the diagnosis of GIST with high-malignancy potential by 5.9 (P=0.025), 2.5 (P=0.317), 10.5% (P=0.008) in the training, internal validation, and external validation cohort, respectively.Conclusions: The NE-RS had comparable prediction efficiency in diagnosis of high-malignant potential of GISTs to CE-RS. The NE-RS and radiomics model both had excellent accuracy in predicting malignancy potential of GISTs.Funding Statement: This work was supported by grants from Shanghai Municipal Key Clinical Specialty (Grant No. shslczdzk05902).Declaration of Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.Ethics Approval Statement: Ethical approval obtained from all four participating hospitals. All patents provided written informed consent.
Congenital hypofibrinogenemia is a rare bleeding disease that is classified as the quantitative deficient type. In the present study, investigated the relationship between the genotype and phenotype in a family with hypofibrinogenemia.The proband was aware of a predisposition to bleeding. Functional analysis was performed for her all family members, including coagulation function tests, thrombus molecular markers, thromboelastography, scanning electron microscopy, DNA sequencing, and high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS). Pathogenicity analysis and protein modeling of mutant amino acids were also performed.A novel heterozygous mutation in c.1094delG was detected in FGG exon 8, which resulted in p. Cys365Phefs*41 (containing the signal peptide) in the proband and her mother, who showed a corresponding decrease in fibrinogen function and levels. Thromboelastography indicated that the strength of their blood clots decreased and they had an increased risk of bleeding. The proband fibrin network structure was looser than healthy controls, with large pores in the network, which increased the permeability of lytic enzymes. Results of HPLC-MS showed a lack of mutant peptide chain expression in their plasma, indicating that the family had congenital hypofibrinogenemia, with a clinical phenotype that is related to the degree of fibrinogen deficiency. The mutation truncated the γ-peptide chain and destroyed the functional structure of fibrinogen, including the γ352Cys-γ365Cys disulfide bond. The truncated peptide chains may also lead to nonsense-mediated decay.The mutation induced a structural change at the carboxyl-terminal of the fibrinogen molecule, leading to fibrinogen secretion dysfunction.
Photothermal therapies (PPTs) with various light-absorbing materials have shown very promising therapeutic effects against cancers. However, their application was severely limited by the lack of accurate localization of tumors and real-time monitoring of the therapeutic process. Theranostic nanoparticles with both imaging and therapeutic functions are highly desired to develop imaging-mediated PPTs. Herein, we develop a facile one-pot method to synthesize a nanoparticle with functions of an MRI contrast agent and a PTT agent through oxidization of dopamine-DTPA-Gd conjugates and PEG-dopamine conjugates. The oxidized dopamine nanoparticles (ODNP) had a high R1 up to 9.6 mM-1 s-1, 2.2 times higher than that of Omniscan, and showed significantly higher MRI contrast enhancement than Omniscan in tumor. Meanwhile, the ODNP showed strong NIR light absorption and significant antitumor efficacy both in vitro and in vivo as a PPT agent. The ODNP with excellent MRI contrasting capability and PTT efficacy plus its facile synthesis and good biocompatibility are a very promising theranostic agent for MRI-mediated PTT.
Small-object detection in satellite remote sensing images plays a pivotal role in the field of remote sensing. Achieving high-performance real-time detection demands not only efficient algorithms but also low-power, high-performance hardware platforms. However, most mainstream target detection methods currently rely on graphics processing units (GPUs) for acceleration, and the high power consumption of GPUs limits their use in resource-constrained platforms such as small satellites. Moreover, small-object detection faces multiple challenges: the targets occupy only a small number of pixels in the image, the background is often complex with significant noise interference, and existing detection models typically exhibit low accuracy when dealing with small targets. In addition, the large number of parameters in these models makes direct deployment on embedded devices difficult. To address these issues, we propose a hybrid overlapping acceleration architecture based on FPGA, along with a lightweight model derived from YOLOv5s that is specifically designed to enhance the detection of small objects in remote sensing images. This model incorporates a lightweight GhostBottleneckV2 module, significantly reducing both model parameters and computational complexity. Experimental results on the TIFAD thermal infrared small-object dataset show that our approach achieves an average precision (mAP) of 67.8% while consuming an average power of only 2.8 W. The robustness of the proposed model is verified by the HRSID dataset. Combining real-time performance with high energy efficiency, this architecture is particularly well suited for on-board remote sensing image processing systems, where reliable and efficient small-object detection is paramount.
With the progress of technology in automated hematology analyzers, in the vast majority of cases, nucleated red corpuscles (NRC) can be automatically identified by most types of automated hematology analyzers, thus correcting the leukocyte count and avoiding pseudoleukocytosis by the analyzers themselves. The objective of the study was to explore pseudoleukocytosis due to immature erythroid precursors and/or erythrocyte dysplasia in the peripheral blood resulting from different rare situations.Four rare cases showing pseudoleukocytosis due to immature erythroid precursors and/or erythrocyte dysplasia in the peripheral blood were analyzed and the effects on complete blood count (CBC) performed on a Sysmex XN-2000 analyzer and microscopic morphological features of the peripheral blood were investigated. These cases were selected for their vital value in describing all pseudoleukocytosis due to immature erythroid pre-cursors and/or erythrocyte dysplasia in the peripheral blood. The causes of immature erythroid precursors and/or erythrocyte dysplasia in the peripheral blood were analyzed.In all these cases, proportions of NRC and leukocyte counts were affected to varying degrees by the presence of numerous immature erythroid precursors and/or obvious erythrocyte dysplasia in the peripheral blood. All cases associated with an alarm concerning NRC presentation, and abnormal scattergrams of WDF and WNR, thus leading to pseudoleukocytosis.Laboratory artifacts led by NRC may be an indicator towards the occurrence of numerous immature erythroid precursors and/or obvious erythrocyte dysplasia in the peripheral blood, and active extramedullary hematopoiesis, breakdown of the bone marrow barrier, and the stress response of acute bleeding and severe multiple infection.
Liver metastasis (LM) occurs in various cancers, and its early and accurate diagnosis is of great importance. However, the detection of small LMs is still a great challenge because of the subtle differences between normal liver tissue and small metastases. Herein, we prepare glutathione (GSH)-responsive hyaluronic acid-coated iron oxide nanoparticles (HIONPs) for highly sensitive diagnosis of LMs through a facile one-pot method. HIONPs greatly enhance the signal of MRI in tumor metastases as T1 contrast agent (CA), whereas they substantially decrease the signal of liver as T2 CA as they aggregate into clusters upon the high GSH in liver. Consequently, MRI contrasted by HIONPs clearly distinguishes metastatic tumors (bright) from surrounding liver tissues (dark). HIONPs with superior LM contrasting capability and facile synthesis are very promising for clinical translation and indicate a new strategy to develop an ultrasensitive MRI CA for LM diagnosis that exploits high GSH level in the liver.