Simple Pulmonary Eosinophilia Mimicking Lung Metastases on 18 F-FDG PET/CT.

ABSTRACT: A 72-year-old man with pancreatic tail cancer underwent distal pancreatectomy and splenectomy 1 year ago. Routine postoperative follow-up CT detected multiple pulmonary nodules. 18 F-FDG PET/CT showed multiple FDG-avid nodules in the bilateral lungs, which highly suggested the possibility of lung metastases of pancreatic cancer. Finally, the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and pathology confirmed the diagnosis of simple pulmonary eosinophilia.

FDG-Avid Periprosthetic Particle Disease Mimicking Osteosarcoma Recurrence.

ABSTRACT: A 24-year-old man with a history of osteosarcoma presented with swelling in his right thigh for more than 1 year. 18 F-FDG PET/CT demonstrated increased FDG uptake in multiple juxtacortical masses around the prosthesis, which highly suggested the possibility of osteosarcoma recurrence. A biopsy was performed, and the pathology confirmed the diagnosis of particle disease. The current case indicates that particle disease should be considered when interpreting the PET/CT images with high FDG uptake around the prosthesis.

The value of FT4/TSH ratio in the differential diagnosis of Graves' disease and subacute thyroiditis.

Objective: To explore the value of the FT4/TSH ratio in the etiological diagnosis of newly diagnosed patients with thyrotoxicosis. Methods: The retrospective study was conducted on 287 patients with thyrotoxicosis (122 patients with subacute thyroiditis and 165 patients with Graves' disease) and 415 healthy people on their first visit to our hospital. All patients underwent thyroid function tests including the measurement of T3, T4, FT3, FT4, TSH, T3/TSH, and T4/TSH. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was employed to evaluate the value of FT4/TSH in the differential diagnosis of Graves' disease and subacute thyroiditis, and compared with other related indicators. Results: The area under the curve of FT4/TSH for diagnosing Graves' disease and thyroiditis was 0.846, which was significantly larger than the area under the curve of T3/T4 ratio (P< 0.05) and FT3/FT4 ratio (P< 0.05). When the cut-off value of the FT4/TSH ratio was 5731.286 pmol/mIU, the sensitivity was 71.52%, the specificity was 90.16%, the positive predictive value was 90.77% and the negative predictive value was 70.06%. The diagnostic accuracy was 79.44%. Conclusion: FT4/TSH ratio can be used as a new reference index for the differential diagnosis of thyrotoxicosis.

Solitary Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor of Lumbar Vertebra Mimicking Metastatic Malignancy.

ABSTRACT: Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor involving solitary lumbar vertebra is extremely rare. A 72-year-old man had a chief complaint of growing lumbocrural pain for 2 months. The CT scan detected a solitary vertebral lesion, which highly supported the diagnosis of metastatic malignancy. 18 F-FDG PET/CT demonstrated that the vertebral lesion had heterogeneous intense FDG accumulation with an SUV max of 16.4. The pathological examination confirmed the diagnosis of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor. This case highlights that MPNST should be considered when there is solitary vertebra invasion with increased FDG uptake.

Solitary Scapular Metastasis as the First Presentation of Prostate Adenocarcinoma Identified on 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT.

ABSTRACT: Metastases of prostate carcinoma in the skeleton are usually multiple. Solitary metastasis in appendicular skeleton is extremely rare. We present bone scan findings of solitary scapular metastasis from prostate adenocarcinoma as the initial presentation of his malignancy in a 62-year-old man. The 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT demonstrated intense activity in the coracoid process of left scapula, whereas the tracer uptakes in other bones were not typical of metastases. The subsequent pathological results of the punctured left scapula confirmed as metastasis from prostate adenocarcinoma.

Software Defined Radio-Based Wireless Sensing System.

In this paper, we investigate the application of using software-defined radio (SDR) and surface acoustic wave (SAW) device for wireless measurement of the response of in situ sensors. SDR uses software to realize different communication functions. After collecting the magnitude and phase of the response at discrete frequencies, we apply inverse Fourier transform to analyze the time domain responses which, in turn, allows for monitoring the changes of the response of the in situ sensor. We employ microwave signal flow graph concepts to improve the quality of the received signals. Comparing the normalized results obtained by SDR with those obtained from a commercial vector network analyzer (VNA), we demonstrate that the results are sufficiently close, and the SDR-based experiments can provide satisfactory measurement of the in-situ sensors. The objective is to eventually employ this wireless measurement system for soil nutrient sensing.

Comparative Analysis of Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emission of Diesel and Electric Trucks for Food Distribution in Gowanus District of New York City.

New York City's food distribution system is among the largest in the United States. Food is transported by trucks from twelve major distribution centers to the city's point-of-sale locations. Trucks consume large amounts of energy and contribute to large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, there is interest to increase the efficiency of New York City's food distribution system. The Gowanus district in New York City is undergoing rezoning from an industrial zone to a mix residential and industrial zone. It serves as a living lab to test new initiatives, policies, and new infrastructure for electric vehicles. We analyze the impact of electrification of food-distribution trucks on greenhouse gas emissions and electricity demand in this paper. However, such analysis faces the challenges of accessing available and granular data, modeling of demands and deliveries that incorporate logistics and inventory management of different types of food retail stores, delivery route selection, and delivery schedule to optimize food distribution. We propose a framework to estimate truck routes for food delivery at a district level. We model the schedule of food delivery from a distribution center to retail stores as a vehicle routing problem using an optimization solver. Our case study shows that diesel trucks consume 300% more energy than electric trucks and generate 40% more greenhouse gases than diesel trucks for food distribution in the Gowanus district.