Should all patients with SCLC receive prophylactic cranial irradiation if they have responded to treatment? The time has come to improve on a former standard.

Brain metastases are common in patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC), and prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) has been shown to reduce the risk of brain metastases in these patients. But how great are the benefits, and do the benefits outweigh the toxicity? In this month's Counterpoints, Dr Ben J. Slotman makes the case for the use of PCI in nearly all patients with SCLC who have responded to treatment, whereas Jacob Yousef and Dr Henry Wagner argue that the role of PCI should be reassessed.

Quantitative radiomics and qualitative LI-RADS imaging descriptors for non-invasive assessment of ß-catenin mutation status in hepatocellular carcinoma.

PURPOSE: Gain-of-function mutations in CTNNB1, gene encoding for ß-catenin, are observed in 25-30% of hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs). Recent studies have shown ß-catenin activation to have distinct roles in HCC susceptibility to mTOR inhibitors and resistance to immunotherapy. Our goal was to develop and test a computational imaging-based model to non-invasively assess ß-catenin activation in HCC, since liver biopsies are often not done due to risk of complications. METHODS: This IRB-approved retrospective study included 134 subjects with pathologically proven HCC and available ß-catenin activation status, who also had either CT or MR imaging of the liver performed within 1 year of histological assessment. For qualitative descriptors, experienced radiologists assessed the presence of imaging features listed in LI-RADS v2018. For quantitative analysis, a single biopsy proven tumor underwent a 3D segmentation and radiomics features were extracted. We developed prediction models to assess the ß-catenin activation in HCC using both qualitative and quantitative descriptors. RESULTS: There were 41 cases (31%) with ß-catenin mutation and 93 cases (69%) without. The model's AUC was 0.70 (95% CI 0.60, 0.79) using radiomics features and 0.64 (0.52, 0.74; p = 0.468) using qualitative descriptors. However, when combined, the AUC increased to 0.88 (0.80, 0.92; p = 0.009). Among the LI-RADS descriptors, the presence of a nodule-in-nodule showed a significant association with ß-catenin mutations (p = 0.015). Additionally, 88 radiomics features exhibited a significant association (p < 0.05) with ß-catenin mutations. CONCLUSION: Combination of LI-RADS descriptors and CT/MRI-derived radiomics determine ß-catenin activation status in HCC with high confidence, making precision medicine a possibility.

Epstein-Barr virus encephalitis presenting as cerebellar hemorrhage.

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) belongs to the human herpesvirus family and is ubiquitously found in the adult human population. The most common clinical manifestation of EBV is the syndrome of infectious mononucleosis. Central nervous system involvement by EBV is rare, with very few cases of EBV encephalitis reported in the literature. The majority of these cases report cerebral cortical changes on magnetic resonance imaging. We present a rare case of EBV encephalitis in a young patient with meningitis-like symptoms and cerebellar hemorrhage on magnetic resonance imaging.