Imaging biomarker cancer

PURPOSE: To assess the prognostic value of Parenchymal Blood Volume (PBV) in predicting survival, tumor response, and PBV response after transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). METHODS: A total of 137 patients with malignant liver tumors who were treated with TACE between 07/2016 and 07/2018 were evaluated. Computed tomography illustrations were reworked at a dedicated workstation to create a PBV map which was overlapped with the associated magnetic resonance image to determine tumor diameter and PBV...

BACKGROUND: Intratumorally delivered immunotherapies have the potential to favorably alter the local tumor microenvironment and may stimulate systemic host immunity, offering an alternative or adjunct to other local and systemic treatments. Despite their potential, these therapies have had limited success in late-phase trials for advanced cancer resulting in few formal approvals. The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) convened a panel of experts to determine how to design clinical trials with the greatest chance of demonstrating the benefits of intratumoral immunotherapy for patients with cancers across all stages of pathogenesis...

Current methods of digital pathological images typically employ small image patches to learn local representative features to overcome the issues of computationally heavy and memory limitations. However, the global contextual features are not fully considered in whole-slide images (WSIs). Here, we designed a hybrid model that utilizes Graph Neural Network (GNN) module and Transformer module for the representation of global contextual features, called TransGNN. GNN module built a WSI-Graph for the foreground area of a WSI for explicitly capturing structural features, and the Transformer module through the self-attention mechanism implicitly learned the global context information...

Image fusion technology had been widely applied in image guided radiotherapy (IGRT) for prostate cancer (PCa) based on the gold fiducial mark (GFM). Image fusion technology included the fusion of CT image, magnetic resonance image, and ultrasound image internally or externally. The application of image fusion technology had improved the identification accuracy of GFM and was helpful for the plan design of PCa radiotherapy. This article provided a systematic review of the application of fusion of various medical images in PCa IGRT in recent years...

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of quantitative magnetic resonance (MR) imaging biomarkers in distinguishing between inflammatory pancreatic masses (IPM) and pancreatic cancer (PC). METHODS: A literature search was conducted using PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Science through August 2023. Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2 (QUADAS-2) was used to evaluate the risk of bias and applicability of the studies. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and diagnostic odds ratio were calculated using the DerSimonian-Laird method...

Despite affecting ~11-13% of women globally, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a substantially understudied condition. PCOS, possibly extending to men's health, imposes a considerable health and economic burden worldwide. Diagnosis in adults follows the International Evidence-based Guideline for the Assessment and Management of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, requiring two out of three criteria - clinical or biochemical hyperandrogenism, ovulatory dysfunction, and/or specific ovarian morphological characteristics or elevated anti-Müllerian hormone...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the associations between apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values extracted from three different region of interest (ROI) position approaches and programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1) expression, and evaluate the performance of the nomogram established based on ADC values and clinicopathological parameters in predicting PD-L1 expression in cervical cancer (CC) patients. METHODS: Through retrospective recruitment, a training cohort of 683 CC patients was created, and a validation cohort of 332 CC patients was prospectively recruited...

177 Lu-PSMA therapy is an effective treatment in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. SUVmean is a valuable screening biomarker to assess the suitability for 177 Lu-PSMA therapy but requires quantitative software. This study aims to develop a simple, clinically applicable prostate-specific membrane antigen PET/CT score that encompasses the elements of SUVmean without requiring additional quantification. Methods: Datasets from ethics-approved trials of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer after androgen receptor signaling inhibition and taxane chemotherapy (or unfit for taxane), who were treated with 177 Lu-PSMA-617 and 177 Lu-PSMA I&T with a pretreatment screening with 68 Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT, and clinical outcome data, including a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) 50% response rate (PSA50), PSA progression-free survival (PSA-PFS), and overall survival (OS), were included...

INTRODUCTION: Radical chemoradiotherapy represents the gold standard for locally advanced cervical cancer. However, despite significant progress in improving local tumour control, distant relapse continues to impact overall survival. The development of predictive and prognostic biomarkers is consequently important to risk-stratify patients and identify populations at higher risk of poorer treatment response and survival outcomes. Exploratory study of using Magnetic resonance Prognostic Imaging markers for Radiotherapy In Cervix cancer (EMPIRIC) is a prospective exploratory cohort study, which aims to investigate the role of multiparametric functional MRI (fMRI) using diffusion-weighed imaging (DWI), dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) and blood oxygen level-dependent imaging (BOLD) MRI to assess treatment response and predict outcomes in patients undergoing radical chemoradiotherapy for cervical cancer...

BACKGROUND: Our understanding of the specific aspects of vascular contributions to dementia remains unclear. OBJECTIVES: We aim to identify the correlates of incident dementia in a multi-ethnic cardiovascular cohort. METHODS: A total of 6806 participants with follow-up data for incident dementia were included. Probable dementia diagnoses were identified using hospitalization discharge diagnoses according to the International Classification of Diseases Codes (ICD)...

PURPOSE: Lutetium-177 [177 Lu]Lu-PSMA-617 radioligand therapy (RLT) represents a significant advancement for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), demonstrating improvements in radiographic progression free survival (rPFS) and overall survival (OS) with a low rate of associated side effects. Currently, most post-therapy SPECT/CT is conducted at 24 h after infusion. This study examines the clinical utility of a next-generation multi-detector Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride (CZT) SPECT/CT system (StarGuide) in same-day post-infusion assessment and early treatment response to [177 Lu]Lu-PSMA-617...

Among the primary threats to human health worldwide, nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains a significant factor and is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Due to subtle early symptoms, NSCLC patients are diagnosed at advanced stages, resulting in low survival rates. Herein, novel Au-Se bond nanoprobes (NPs) designed for the specific detection of Calpain-2 (CAPN2) and Human Neutrophil Elastase (HNE), pivotal biomarkers in NSCLC, were developed. The NPs demonstrated exceptional specificity and sensitivity toward CAPN2 and HNE, enabling dual-color fluorescence imaging to distinguish between NSCLC cells and normal lung cells effectively...

BACKGROUND: Gastric cancer (GC) remains a leading cause of cancer mortality globally. Synaptotagmin-4 (SYT4), a calcium-sensing synaptic vesicle protein, has been implicated in the oncogenesis of diverse malignancies. PURPOSE: This study delineates the role of SYT4 in modulating clinical outcomes and biological behaviors in GC. METHODS: We evaluated SYT4 expression in GC specimens using bioinformatics analyses and immunohistochemistry. Functional assays included CCK8 proliferation tests, apoptosis assays via flow cytometry, confocal calcium imaging, and xenograft models...

Molecular magnetic resonance imaging (mMRI) of biomarkers is essential for accurate cancer detection in precision medicine. However, the current clinically used contrast agents provide structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) information only and rarely provide mMRI information. Here, a tumor-specific furin-catalyzed nanoprobe (NP) was reported for differential diagnosis of malignant breast cancers (BCs) in vivo . This NP with a compact structure of Fe3 O4 @Gd-DOTA NPs (FFG NPs) contains an "always-on" T2 -weighted MR signal provided by the magnetic Fe3 O4 core and a furin-catalyzed enhanced T1 -weighted MR signal provided by the Gd-DOTA moiety...

Chronic, non-communicable diseases present a major barrier to living a long and healthy life. In many cases, early diagnosis can facilitate prevention, monitoring, and treatment efforts, improving patient outcomes. There is therefore a critical need to make screening techniques as accessible, unintimidating, and cost-effective as possible. The association between ocular biomarkers and systemic health and disease (oculomics) presents an attractive opportunity for detection of systemic diseases, as ophthalmic techniques are often relatively low-cost, fast, and non-invasive...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify differential metabolites and key metabolic pathways between lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) tissues and normal lung (NL) tissues using metabolomics techniques, to discover potential biomarkers for the early diagnosis of lung cancer. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Forty-five patients with primary ground-glass nodules (GGN) identified on computed tomography imaging and who were willing to undergo surgery at Shanghai General Hospital from December 2021 to December 2022 were recruited to the study...

Ferroptosis is a distinct form of regulated cell death that is predominantly driven by the build-up of intracellular iron and lipid peroxides. Ferroptosis suppression is widely accepted to contribute to the pathogenesis of several tumours including prostate cancer. Results from some studies reported that prostate cancer cells can be highly susceptible to ferroptosis inducers, providing potential for an interesting new avenue of therapeutic intervention for advanced prostate cancer. In this Perspective, we describe novel molecular underpinnings and metabolic drivers of ferroptosis, analyse the functions and mechanisms of ferroptosis in tumours, and highlight prostate cancer-specific susceptibilities to ferroptosis by connecting ferroptosis pathways to the distinctive metabolic reprogramming of prostate cancer cells...

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer, the second most common cancer, presents persistently dismal prognoses. Radiomics, a promising field, aims to provide novel imaging biomarkers to improve outcomes. However, clinical translation faces reproducibility challenges, despite efforts to address them with quality scoring tools. OBJECTIVE: This study had two objectives: 1) identify radiomics biomarkers in post-radiotherapy stage III/IV nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, 2) evaluate research quality using the CLEAR (CheckList_for_EvaluAtion_of_Radiomics_research), RQS (Radiomics_Quality_Score) frameworks, and formulate an amalgamated CLEAR-RQS tool to enhance scientific rigor...

Colorectal cancer represents the third most common cancer and about 20% are diagnosed with synchronous metastatic disease. From a historical point of view, surgery remains the mainstream treatment for resectable colorectal liver metastases (CRLM). Furthermore, disease outcomes are improving due significant advances in systemic treatments and diagnostic methods. However, the optimal timing for neoadjuvant chemotherapy or upfront surgery for CRLM has not yet been established and remains an open question. Thus, patient selection combining image workouts, time of recurrence, positive lymph nodes, and molecular biomarkers can improve the decision-making process...

BACKGROUND: The immune-related adverse effects after immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) treatment have always been a hot topic. Although the incidence of myocarditis is not high among the related adverse effects, the mortality rate is extremely high once it occurs. In the past, the risk of cancer therapy-related cardiac dysfunction (CTRCD) after drug treatment was evaluated based on imaging examinations, but this evaluation still had certain limitations. Currently, the extracellular volume (ECV) score measurement calculated using cardiac magnetic resonance T1 mapping has become a reliable method for evaluating myocardial toxicity and computed tomography (CT) examination may become an alternative...