(Press-News.org) Reston, Va. (March 9, 2015) - A single scan could diagnose the cause of foot pain better and with less radiation exposure to the patient than other methods, according to a study in the March 2015 issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Imaging with 18F-fluoride positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MR), compared to 18F-fluoride positron emission tomography/computed topography (PET/CT), provides more diagnostic information with higher diagnostic certainty.
Foot pain is a common problem in the daily routine of any orthopedic surgeon. It can be a clinical symptom of many different issues, from stress fractures to tumors. Multiple imaging modalities are available to help diagnose specific types of foot pain, but no one modality is useful for effectively diagnosing a wide range of causes. Imaging with 18F-fluoride PET is highly sensitive tool but has low specificity for detection of metabolically active benign bone disease, while MR imaging provides excellent soft-tissue contrast and high resolution which helps in specifying a diagnosis. Thus, combined, PET/MR can offer an important tool for the sensitive diagnosis of foot pathologies.
In "Evaluation of 18F-Fluoride PET/MR and PET/CT in Patients with Foot Pain of Unclear Cause," researchers compared the quality and diagnostic performance of 18F-fluoride PET/MR to those of 18F-fluoride PET/CT in 22 patients for whom the specific diagnosis was inconclusive after clinical examination and radiography. The results of overall image quality showed that PET/MR was significantly superior to PET/CT, with an overall excellent image quality score of 3.0/3 points in all PET/MR datasets, while PET/CT achieved 2.3 out of 3 possible points.
"In our study, 18F-fluoride PET/MR provided more diagnostic information at a higher diagnostic certainty compared to 18F-fluoride PET/CT in patients with foot pain of unclear cause," states Isabel Rauscher, corresponding author of the study. "Besides information on bone metabolism, it provides additional diagnostic relevant findings from soft-tissue and bone marrow pathology (e.g., bone marrow edema, ganglion cysts or tenosynovitis) compared to PET/CT." Also, since MR involves no radiation and the scan allows a longer PET acquisition time, the patient's exposure is lower than with CT.
INFORMATION:
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass--The process of wrinkle formation is familiar to anyone who has ever sat in a bathtub a little too long. But exactly why layered materials sometimes form one kind of wrinkly pattern or another -- or even other variations, such as creases, folds, or delaminated buckles -- has now been explained at a fundamental level by researchers at MIT.
The underlying process is the same in all of these cases: Layers of material with slightly different properties -- whether skin tissue or multilayer materials created in the lab -- tend to form patterned surfaces when ...
March 9, 2015 -- Unhealthy weight gain in pregnancy has been linked with infant size and body composition but until now little was known about its long-term association with childhood obesity among low-income and multi-ethnic youth. For the first time, researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health studied the effects of gestational weight gain on childhood obesity risk among a multi-ethnic urban population. The researchers determined that excessive pregnancy weight gain was associated with greater overall and abdominal body fat in children and obesity ...
EUGENE, Ore. -- March 9, 2015 -- University of Oregon geologist Qusheng Jin initially labeled his theory "A Wild Hypothesis." Now his study of arsenic cycling in a southern Willamette Valley aquifer is splashing with potential significance for arsenic-compromised aquifers around the world.
In a paper online ahead of regular publication in the journal Nature Geoscience, Jin's five-member team reports on a bacterial process that turns toxic inorganic arsenic into organic forms that usually are considered to be less dangerous. Jin's conclusion now is that organic arsenic ...
SAN FRANCISCO (March 9, 2015) -- A team of Brazilian scientists--including Luiz Rocha, PhD, Associate Curator of Ichthyology at the California Academy of Sciences--is raising awareness about impending conservation setbacks for Brazil's aquatic animals, calling for immediate fisheries management collaboration between the nation's public and private sectors. The scientists say Brazil can transform this moment of political turmoil into positive action--and become a leader among developing countries facing widespread extinction of aquatic fauna. The call to protect the future ...
Vildagliptin (trade name Galvus or Jalra) has been approved since September 2007 for adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus in whom diet and exercise do not provide adequate glycaemic control. The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined in a new dossier assessment whether this drug offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy. Such an added benefit cannot be derived from the new dossier either, however, because the drug manufacturer did not submit any suitable data.
Manufacturer itself applied for a new dossier assessment
Neither ...
Atomic clocks are the most accurate clocks in the world. In an atomic clock, electrons jumping from one orbit to another decides the clock's frequency. To get the electrons to jump, researchers shine light on the atoms using stabilised laser light. However, the laser light has to have a very precise frequency to trigger very precise electron jumps. It is however challenging to get the laser light frequency ultra precise - there will always be a little 'noise'. Now researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have developed a method that reduces the noise so that it is up to ...
The drug combination of ledipasvir and sofosbuvir (trade name Harvoni) has been available since November 2014 for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C infection. The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined in a dossier assessment whether this new drug offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy.
IQWiG found a hint a non-quantifiable added benefit for two out of seven patient groups in total: in an infection with genotype 1 hepatitis C virus (HCV) when previous therapies had been unsuccessful, and when previously ...
HEIDELBERG, 10 March 2015 - An international group of researchers has shown that a regulatory protein involved in controlling how cancer spreads through the body also influences the fate of stem cells in the intestine of mice. The results, which are published in The EMBO Journal, show that the Snai1 protein plays an important role in deciding the fate of intestinal stem cells and the different functions that these cells can adopt.
"Our results show that Snai1 is a key regulator of crypt base columnar cells, a type of stem cell found in the invaginations or crypts that ...
New research conducted by The University of Manchester has found that GPs' patients can feel alienated by lack of trust, impersonal processes and that this presents problems to improving their safety.
Most research into patient safety focuses on the systems operated by health services. This is particularly focused on hospitals. However, most encounters occur within GP services where relationships between doctor and patient can form a significant part of reaching successful diagnosis and treatment.
The team from the NIHR Greater Manchester Primary Care Patient Safety ...
Study suggests that millions of modern Asian men are descended from 11 ancient leaders, including Genghis Khan
Sample examined the Y chromosomes of 5,000 Asian men from 127 populations
Historical nomadic and mobile populations allowed for Y chromosomes to be spread far and wide
Geneticists from the University of Leicester have discovered that millions of modern Asian men are descended from 11 powerful dynastic leaders who lived up to 4,000 years ago - including Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan.
The study, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust and published in ...
