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Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields
Published in Marko S. Markov, James T. Ryaby, Erik I. Waldorff, Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields for Clinical Applications, 2020
A recent study evaluated the effect of PRF on cardiac angiogenesis in a reproducible thermal myocardial injury model. The injury was created in the region of the distal aspect of the left anterior descending artery at the base of the heart in a blinded rat model (Patel et al., 2006; Strauch et al., 2006, 2009; Pilla, 2013). PRF exposure was 30 min twice daily for 3, 7, 14, or 21 days. Sham animals were identically exposed but received no PRF signal. A separate group of animals treated for 7 days received L-nitroso-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME), a general NOS inhibitor, in their drinking water. Upon sacrifice, myocardial tissue specimens were stained with CD-31, and the number of new blood vessels was counted on histological sections at the interface between normal and necrotic muscle at each time point by three independent blinded histologists. The results showed mean new vessel count was not significantly increased by PEMF at day 3 but was significantly increased at day 7 (+50%, P = 0.006), day 14 (+67%, P = 0.004), and day 21 (+99%, P < 0.001). The results shown in Figure 2.9 for day 7 indicate L-NAME completely blocked the PEMF effect on angiogenesis, suggesting the transduction pathway for the PRF effect on angiogenesis in this study involved CaM-dependent NO signaling.
Automatic Segmentation of Cardiac Substructures for Radiation Oncology Applications
Published in Ayman El-Baz, Jasjit S. Suri, Cardiovascular Imaging and Image Analysis, 2018
Jinzhong Yang, Rongrong Zhou, Yangkun Luo, Zhongxing Liao
The diagnostic images of the first group of six patients were imported into the Pinnacle treatment planning system (Philips Medical Systems, Fitchburg, WI) for manual contouring. The contrast CT image was fused with the noncontrast CT image using rigid-registration in Pinnacle. Manual contouring was performed by eight radiation oncologists: two specialists in thoracic cancer radiotherapy, two specialists in lymphoma radiotherapy, and four radiation oncologists trained outside the United States with various levels of experience. Before manual delineation, the eight radiation oncologists reviewed the RTOG (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group) 1106 organ-at-risk contouring guideline [20] and a published cardiac atlas consensus contouring guideline [21] as a group. Each of the eight oncologists manually and independently delineated 15 cardiac structures on noncontrast CT images by referring to the fused contrast CT image and Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy [22] and by following the aforementioned contouring guidelines. The 15 delineated structures were the whole heart, the four heart chambers (left atrium, right atrium, left ventricle, and right ventricle), four coronary arteries (left main coronary artery, left anterior descending artery, left circumflex artery, and right coronary artery), and six great vessels (superior vena cava, inferior vena cava, pulmonary artery, pulmonary vein, ascending aorta with the aortic arch, and descending aorta). The contours of each structure delineated by the eight radiation oncologists were fused to one using the simultaneous truth and performance level estimation (STAPLE) algorithm for each patient [23]. The fused contours were further reviewed and edited by two radiation oncologists to ensure consistency across patients.
Do the Right Thing
Published in Norbert Majerus, George Taninecz, Winning Innovation, 2022
Norbert Majerus, George Taninecz
During Junior’s cardiac catherization, doctors found a 99-percent blockage in his left anterior descending artery (a massive heart attack also known as “the widow maker”). They opened the blockage with angioplasty, and then inserted a 30-millimeter stent to keep it open. Unlike what Junior had heard from friends who have had a similar procedure, he was not suddenly feeling better with blood flowing more freely. He had a lot of pain in his chest due to the extensiveness of the cath procedure and size of the stent, and was given morphine to relieve the pain.
Automatic 3-D tubular centerline tracking of coronary arteries in coronary computed tomographic angiography
Published in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering: Imaging & Visualization, 2018
Nasrin Salehi, Ahmad Reza Naghsh-Nilchi
The presented method is evaluated using Rotterdam Coronary Artery Algorithm (RCAA) evaluation framework from MICCAI coronary artery challenge 2008 (Schaap et al. 2009). This framework allows easy comparison and evaluation of coronary artery centerline extraction algorithms using standardised evaluation measures which evaluate extraction ability and accuracy. In this framework, 32 data-sets were randomly selected from patients who underwent a cardiac CTA examination between June 2005 and June 2006 in the Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, located in Netherlands. From these 32 CTA data-sets, 12 data-sets were acquired by a dual-source CT scanner and 20 data-sets were acquired by a 64-slice CT scanner. Also, the mean voxel size of the data-sets is 0.32 × 0.32 × 0.4 mm3. Since a reliable evaluation needs representative train and test data-sets, image quality and presence of calcium is measured by a radiologist and based on these scorings the data was distributed equally over a group of 8 and a group of 24 as training and test data-sets, respectively. In all 32 data-sets, four main vessels were selected as reference standard centerlines by an observer. The four vessels were the right coronary artery (RCA), left anterior descending artery (LAD), left circumflex artery (LCX) and a large side-branch of these main coronary arteries. All the 32 cardiac CTA data-sets and the corresponding reference standard centerlines for the training data are made publicly available at website of the RCAA evaluation framework (http://coronary.bigr.nl).