Petroclival meningiomas: radiological features essential for surgeons.

Petroclival meningiomas (PCMs) have always been a challenge for surgeons because of their difficult anatomical location. The role of radiology in providing precise indications regarding the tumour site and aggressiveness plays a major part in guiding the subsequent therapeutic process. The purpose of this review is to provide a set of the main radiological features helpful in the management of PCMs towards the most correct therapeutic approach. We aim to offer a radiological overview to allow the patient to be directed to surgery with the least possible risk of complications.

Principal Component Analysis of Dynamic Thermography Data from Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Women.

In this work we propose a novel approach for the analysis ofdynamic thermography data based on the application of principal component analysis to thermal video data. The proposed approach is applied to thermal video recordings of the abdominal region of pregnant and non-pregnant female participants, and reveals consistent temperature trends across participants that to date have not been reported. Both for the pregnant and non-pregnant participants, the first principal component was found to describe approximately 80% of the total variance, and when combined, the first three principal components explained more than 90% of the total variance. The presence of consistent temporal components across participants is indicative of common passive as well as active underlying mechanisms thatgive rise to the observed temperature patterns. The outcome of this investigation supports further development and application of the proposedmethod in obstetrics and other medical fields.

Registration of Dynamic Thermography Data of the Abdomen of Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Women.

To date the use of thermography in the context of obstetrics has been primarily limited to the acquisition and analysis of static thermal images. In contrast, dynamic thermography involves the acquisition of a sequence of thermal images, taking into account temporal variations that would otherise be overlooked. However, dynamic recordings of regions of interest in human participants are likely to be affected by unavoidable participant movement due to breathing and other involuntary movements. In this work, a triangulation-based video registration technique using local affine transformations is proposed to register the abdominal region in dynamic thermal sequences. The proposed method is tested on one hour recordings of thermal data obtained from 10 pregnant and 10 non-pregnant female participants. The results obtained show that the proposed approach can compensate for movements and significantly improve region alignment throughout the thermal image sequence, thereby facilitating subsequent analysis of spatiotemporal temperature data in the considered image sequence.

Small bowel imaging in Crohn's disease patients.

Crohn's disease (CD) is a lifelong, chronic inflammatory bowel disorder. The small bowel (SB) is involved to varying extents, and the clinical course may vary from an inflammatory type to a more complicated one with stricture, fistula, and abscess formation. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy and ileocolonoscopy with biopsies are the conventional endoscopic techniques that usually establish the diagnosis. On the other hand, CD may affect SB segments that cannot be reached through these procedures. Video capsule endoscopy and enteroscopy are additional endoscopic techniques that may allow further SB evaluation in such circumstances. Computed tomographic enterography, magnetic resonance enterography, and ultrasonography are radiologic techniques that serve as a crucial adjunct to endoscopic assessment. They enable the assessment of parts of the bowel that may be difficult to reach with conventional endoscopy; this allows for the detection of active inflammation, penetrating or stricturing disease, and the appreciation of extraintestinal complications. Both endoscopic and radiologic modalities play a role in establishing the diagnosis of CD, as well as determining the disease extent, activity and response to therapy. This review is intended to evaluate these modalities in terms of specificity, sensitivity, potential side-effects, and limiting factors. This should serve as a guide to the clinician for establishing the most appropriate and reliable test within a particular clinical context.