Evaluation of contrast-enhanced helical hydro-CT in staging gastric cancer

AIM： TO discuss the helical computed tomography （CT） characteristics of gastric cancer and evaluate the diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced helical hydro-CT （HHCT） in staging gastric cancer. METHODS： A total of 50 patients with gastric cancer were included in this study. The CT findings in them were retrospectively analyzed and correlated with pathologic findings at surgery. All patients were preoperatively imaged by plain and contrast-enhanced helical CT afer orally ingesting 1 000-1 500 mL water. Peristalsis was minimized by intravenous administration of spasmolytics. RESULTS： The foci of gastric cancer became more prominent in all the 50 patients and showed strong enhancement in contrast-enhanced HHCT. The tumor was located at the gastric cardia in 14 cases, at the gastric fundus in 3 cases, at the gastric body in 8 cases, at the gastric antrum in 4 cases, at the gastric fundus and the body in 8 cases, at the gastric body and antrum in 11 cases, and at three segments of the stomach in 2 cases. The CT features of gastric cancer were focal or diffuse mural thickening, soft tissue mass, cancerous ulcer, stenosis of stomach, infiltration to adjacent tissues, lymph node and distant metastases. Strong contrast enhancement of the gastric wall was closely related to gastric cancer. The accuracy rate of contrast-enhanced HHCT in staging gastric cancer was 86% （43/50）. The detection rate of lymph node metastases by CT was 60% （12/20）. CONCLUSION： Contrast-enhanced HHCT is a reliable method to diagnose and stage gastric cancer.

Prediction of critical forging penetration efficiency for 06Cr19Ni9NbN steel by dynamic recrystallization

In order to determine the critical forging penetration efficiency （FPE） of 06Crl9NigNbN steel, a new model was presented to describe critical FPE, which is significant to optimize the steel forging process. The plane strain compression tests were conducted to obtain the model and confirm its va- lidity. The results indicated that the dynamic recrystallization （DRX） volume fraction increases and the grain size decreases with the rise of reduction ratio. Meanwhile, the compression process was simulated by DEFORM software. The tensile tests were conducted and the results demonstrated that the mechanical properties gradually become stable when the reduction ratio increases to 30%, 34% and 40% at 1200, 1 100 and 1000 ℃, respectively. The calculated results based on this new model are consistent with experimental results, indicating that the model is suitable to predict the critical FPE for the steel.