Differentiation of Renal Oncocytoma and Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma Using Relative CT Enhancement Ratio

Background：The difference between renal oncocytomas （RO） and renal clear cell carcinomas （RCCs） presents the greatest diagnostic challenge.The aim of this study was to retrospectively determine ifRO and RCCs could be differentiated on computed tomography （CT） images on the basis of their enhancement patterns with a new enhancement correcting method.Methods：Forty-six patients with a solitary renal mass who underwent total or partial nephrectomy were included in this study.Fourteen of those were RO and 32 were RCCs.All patients were examined with contrast-enhanced CT.The pattern and degree of enhancement were evaluated.We selected the area that demonstrated the greatest degree of enhancement of the renal lesion in the corticomedullary nephrographic and excretory phase images.Regions of interest （ROI） were also placed in adjacent normal renal cortex for normalization.We used the values of the normal renal cortex that were measured at the same time as divisors.The ratios of lesion-to-renal cortex enhancement were calculated for all three phases.The Student＆#39;s t-test and Pearson＆#39;s Chi-square test were used for statistical analyses.Results：All RCCs masses showed contrast that appeared to be better enhanced than RO on all contrast-enhanced phases of CT imaging,but there was no significant difference in absolute attenuation values between these two diseases （P 〉 0.05）.The ratio of lesion-to-cortex attenuation in the corticomedullary phase showed significantly different values between RO and RCCs.The degree of contrast enhancement in RCCs was equal to or greater than that of the normal renal cortex,but it was less than that of the normal cortex in RO in the corticomedullary phase.The ratio of lesion-to-cortex attenuation in the corticomedullary phase was higher than the cut off value of 1.0 in most RCCs （84%,27/32） and lower than 1.0 in most RO （93%,13/14） （P 〈 0.05）.In the nephrographic phase,the ratio of lesion-to-cortex attenuation was higher than that in the corticomedullary phase in most RO （71%,10/14）,showing a prolonged enhancement pattern; and was lower than that in most RCCs （97%,31/32）,showing an early washout pattern （P 〈 0.05）.In the differentiation of RO from RCCs,the sensitivity was 93%,specificity 84%,positive predictive value 72%,negative predictive value 84%,and accuracy for RO was 87,if the ratio of lesion-to-cortex attenuation in a cortex phase was lower than the cutoff value of 1.0.The sensitivity was 71%,specificity was 97%,positive predictive value was 91%,negative predictive value was 91%,and accuracy for RO was 89%,if the ratio of lesion-to-cortex attenuation in nephrographic phase was higher than that in the corticomedullary phase.Conclusions：The ratios of renal lesion-to-cortex attenuation ratios may be helpful in differentiating RO from RCCs.

Raltitrexed as a synergistic hyperthermia chemotherapy drug screened in patient-derived colorectal cancer organoids

Objective:Organoids have recently been used as in vitro models to screen chemotherapy drugs in combination with hyperthermia treatment in colorectal cancer.Our research aimed to establish a library of patient-derived colorectal cancer organoids to evaluate synergism between chemotherapy drugs and hyperthermia;validate an index of the hyperthermia chemotherapy sensitization enhancement ratio(HCSER)to identify the chemotherapeutics most enhanced by hyperthermia;and recommend chemotherapy drugs for hyperthermic intraperitoneal treatment.Methods:Organoids were grown from cells extracted from colorectal cancer patient samples or colorectal cancer cell lines.Cells from both sources were encapsulated in 3 D Matrigel droplets,which were formulated in microfluidics and phase-transferred into identical cell-laden Matrigel microspheres.The microspheres were seeded in 96-well plates,with each well containing a single microsphere that developed into an organoid after 7 days.The organoids were used to evaluate the efficacy of chemotherapy drugs at both 37℃ as a control and 43℃ for 90 min to examine hyperthermia synergism.Cell viability was counted with 10%CCK8.Results:We successfully established a library of colorectal cancer organoids from 22 patient parental tumors.We examined the hyperthermia synergism of 7 commonly used hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy drugs.In 11 of the 22 patient organoids,raltitrexed had significant hyperthermia synergism,which was indexed as the highest HCSER score within each patient group.Conclusions:Our results primarily demonstrated the use of patient-derived colorectal cancer organoids as in vitro models to evaluate hyperthermia synergistic chemotherapeutics.We found that hyperthermia enhanced the effect of raltitrexed the most among the common anti-colorectal cancer drugs.

Comment on“Prognostic value of preoperative enhanced computed tomography as a quantitative imaging biomarker in pancreatic cancer”

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma(PDAC)is one of the most lethal malignancies because of its high invasiveness and metastatic potential.Computed tomography(CT)is often used as a preliminary diagnostic tool for pancreatic cancer,and it is increasingly used to predict treatment response and disease stage.Recently,a study published in World Journal of Gastroenterology reported that quantitative analysis of preoperative enhanced CT data can be used to predict postoperative overall survival in patients with PDAC.A tumor relative enhancement ratio of≤0.7 indicates a higher tumor stage and poor prognosis.

Analysis of Precipitation Resource and Weather Modification Potential in Anyang

Using ground water vapor pressure and precipitation data at four times of one day during 1985- 2014 in each county（ city） of Anyang,precipitable water at each station was calculated,and temporal-spatial distribution of atmospheric maximum precipitable water and its change trend over the years in the city were analyzed. Results showed that atmospheric maximum precipitable water in Anyang City had the characteristics of summer far more than winter,autumn slightly higher than spring,west and south more,and east and north less,and presented the increasing trend year by year. We further analyzed the characteristic of monthly rainfall enhancement potential in each county,and mean in whole year was 80%. In spring and winter,rainfall enhancement potential in the west was bigger than east,while rainfall enhancement potential in the east was bigger than west in summer and autumn. The research provides reference basis for rationally carrying out artificial rainfall work,which could effectively ease uneven temporal-spatial distribution problem of water resource in Anyang City.

Imaging process and signal-to-noise ratio improvement of enhanced self-heterodyne synthetic aperture imaging ladar

This Letter gives the general construction of an enhanced self-heterodyne synthetic aperture imaging ladar（SAIL） system, and proposes the principle of image processing. A point target is reconstructed in the enhanced self-heterodyne SAIL as well as in down-looking SAIL experiments, and the achieved imaging resolution of the enhanced self-heterodyne SAIL is analyzed. The signal-to-noise ratio（SNR） of the point target final image in the enhanced self-heterodyne SAIL is higher than that in the down-looking SAIL. The enhanced self-heterodyne SAIL can improve the SNR of the target image in far-distance imaging, with practicality.

Radiosensitization of human pancreatic cancer by piperlongumine analogues

Radiotherapy is commonly used to treat advanced pancreatic cancers and can improve survival by2 months in combination with gemcitabine.However,prognosis and survival improvement remain unsatisfactory,and effective therapies are urgently needed.Piperlongumine has been demonstrated to have therapeutic potentials against various cancers.In this study,we synthesized a series of piperlongumine derivatives and provided evidence that piperlongumine derivatives could be used as effective radiosensitizers in pancreatic cancer.Two compounds enhanced the radiosensitivity of Panc-1 and SW1990 cells.In a pancreatic bi-flank xenograft tumor model,they significantly inhibited tumor growth.Piperlongumine derivatives could induce reactive oxygen species(ROS)expression and regulate the Keapl-Nrf2 protective pathway with enhancement of radiation-induced DNA damage,G2/M-phase cell cycle arrest,and apoptosis.Collectively,our data offer a proof of concept for the use of piperlongumine derivatives as a novel class of radiosensitizers for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Modelling soil erodibility in mountain rangelands of southern Kyrgyzstan

Soil erosion in mountain rangelands in Kyrgyzstan is an emerging problem due to vegetation loss caused by overgrazing. It is further exacerbated by mountain terrain and high precipitation values in Fergana range in the south of Kyrgyzstan. The main objective of this study was to map soil erodibility in the mountainous rangelands of Kyrgyzstan. The results of this effort are expected to contribute to the development of soil erodibility modelling approaches for mountainous areas. In this study, we mapped soil erodibility at two sites, both representing grazing rangelands in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and having potentially different levels of grazing pressure. We collected a total of 232 soil samples evenly distributed in geographical space and feature space. Then we analyzed the samples in laboratory for grain size distribution and calculated soil erodibility values from these data using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) K-factor formula. After that, we derived different terrain indices and ratios of frequency bands from ASTER GDEM and LANDSAT images to use as auxiliary data because they are among the main soil forming factors and widely used for prediction of various soil properties. Soil erodibility was significantly correlated with channel network base level (geographically extrapolated altitude of water channels), remotely sensed indices of short-wave infrared spectral bands, exposition, and slope degree. We applied multiple regression analysis to predict soil erodibility from spatially explicit terrain and remotely sensed indices. The final soil erodibility model was developed using the spatially explicit predictors and the regression equation and then improved by adding the residuals. The spatial resolution of the model was 30 m, and the estimated mean adjusted coefficient of determination was 0.47. The two sites indicated different estimated and predicted means of soil erodibility values (0.035 and 0.039) with a 0.05 significance level, which is attributed mainly to the considerable difference in elevation.