Non-Invasive Tumor Grade Evaluation in Von Hippel-Lindau-Associated Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Based Study.

BACKGROUND: Pathology grading is an essential step for the treatment and evaluation of the prognosis in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). PURPOSE: To investigate the utility of texture analysis in evaluating Fuhrman grades of renal tumors in patients with Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL)-associated ccRCC, aiming to improve non-invasive diagnosis and personalized treatment. STUDY TYPE: Retrospective analysis of a prospectively maintained cohort. POPULATION: One hundred and thirty-six patients, 84 (61%) males and 52 (39%) females with pathology-proven ccRCC with a mean age of 52.8 ± 12.7 from 2010 to 2023. FIELD STRENGTH AND SEQUENCES: 1.5 and 3 T MRIs. Segmentations were performed on the T1-weighted 3-minute delayed sequence and then registered on pre-contrast, T1-weighted arterial and venous sequences. ASSESSMENT: A total of 404 lesions, 345 low-grade tumors, and 59 high-grade tumors were segmented using ITK-SNAP on a T1-weighted 3-minute delayed sequence of MRI. Radiomics features were extracted from pre-contrast, T1-weighted arterial, venous, and delayed post-contrast sequences. Preprocessing techniques were employed to address class imbalances. Features were then rescaled to normalize the numeric values. We developed a stacked model combining random forest and XGBoost to assess tumor grades using radiomics signatures. STATISTICAL TESTS: The model's performance was evaluated using positive predictive value (PPV), sensitivity, F1 score, area under the curve of receiver operating characteristic curve, and Matthews correlation coefficient. Using Monte Carlo technique, the average performance of 100 benchmarks of 85% train and 15% test was reported. RESULTS: The best model displayed an accuracy of 0.79. For low-grade tumor detection, a sensitivity of 0.79, a PPV of 0.95, and an F1 score of 0.86 were obtained. For high-grade tumor detection, a sensitivity of 0.78, PPV of 0.39, and F1 score of 0.52 were reported. DATA CONCLUSION: Radiomics analysis shows promise in classifying pathology grades non-invasively for patients with VHL-associated ccRCC, potentially leading to better diagnosis and personalized treatment. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 1 TECHNICAL EFFICACY: Stage 2.

Kidney scoring surveillance: predictive machine learning models for clear cell renal cell carcinoma growth using MRI.

INTRODUCTION: Classification of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) growth rates in patients with Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) syndrome has several ramifications for tumor monitoring and surgical planning. Using two separate machine-learning algorithms, we sought to produce models to predict ccRCC growth rate classes based on qualitative MRI-derived characteristics. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We used a prospectively maintained database of patients with VHL who underwent surgical resection for ccRCC between January 2015 and June 2022. We employed a threshold growth rate of 0.5 cm per year to categorize ccRCC tumors into two distinct groups-'slow-growing' and 'fast-growing'. Utilizing a questionnaire of qualitative imaging features, two radiologists assessed each lesion on different MRI sequences. Two machine-learning models, a stacked ensemble technique and a decision tree algorithm, were used to predict the tumor growth rate classes. Positive predictive value (PPV), sensitivity, and F1-score were used to evaluate the performance of the models. RESULTS: This study comprises 55 patients with VHL with 128 ccRCC tumors. Patients' median age was 48 years, and 28 patients were males. Each patient had an average of two tumors, with a median size of 2.1 cm and a median growth rate of 0.35 cm/year. The overall performance of the stacked and DT model had 0.77 ± 0.05 and 0.71 ± 0.06 accuracies, respectively. The best stacked model achieved a PPV of 0.92, a sensitivity of 0.91, and an F1-score of 0.90. CONCLUSION: This study provides valuable insight into the potential of machine-learning analysis for the determination of renal tumor growth rate in patients with VHL. This finding could be utilized as an assistive tool for the individualized screening and follow-up of this population.

CT radiomics for differentiating fat poor angiomyolipoma from clear cell renal cell carcinoma: Systematic review and meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: Differentiation of fat-poor angiomyolipoma (fp-AMLs) from renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is often not possible from just visual interpretation of conventional cross-sectional imaging, typically requiring biopsy or surgery for diagnostic confirmation. However, radiomics has the potential to characterize renal masses without the need for invasive procedures. Here, we conducted a systematic review on the accuracy of CT radiomics in distinguishing fp-AMLs from RCCs. METHODS: We conducted a search using PubMed/MEDLINE, Google Scholar, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science for studies published from January 2011-2022 that utilized CT radiomics to discriminate between fp-AMLs and RCCs. A random-effects model was applied for the meta-analysis according to the heterogeneity level. Furthermore, subgroup analyses (group 1: RCCs vs. fp-AML, and group 2: ccRCC vs. fp-AML), and quality assessment were also conducted to explore the possible effect of interstudy differences. To evaluate CT radiomics performance, the pooled sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were assessed. This study is registered with PROSPERO (CRD42022311034). RESULTS: Our literature search identified 10 studies with 1456 lesions in 1437 patients. Pooled sensitivity was 0.779 [95% CI: 0.562-0.907] and 0.817 [95% CI: 0.663-0.910] for groups 1 and 2, respectively. Pooled specificity was 0.933 [95% CI: 0.814-0.978]and 0.926 [95% CI: 0.854-0.964] for groups 1 and 2, respectively. Also, our findings showed higher sensitivity and specificity of 0.858 [95% CI: 0.742-0.927] and 0.886 [95% CI: 0.819-0.930] for detecting ccRCC from fp-AML in the unenhanced phase of CT scan as compared to the corticomedullary and nephrogenic phases of CT scan. CONCLUSION: This study suggested that radiomic features derived from CT has high sensitivity and specificity in differentiating RCCs vs. fp-AML, particularly in detecting ccRCCs vs. fp-AML. Also, an unenhanced CT scan showed the highest specificity and sensitivity as compared to contrast CT scan phases. Differentiating between fp-AML and RCC often is not possible without biopsy or surgery; radiomics has the potential to obviate these invasive procedures due to its high diagnostic accuracy.

Role of ultra-high b-value DWI in the imaging of hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell carcinoma (HLRCC).

PURPOSE: Hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell carcinoma (HLRCC) syndrome is associated with an aggressive form of renal cell carcinoma with high risk of metastasis, even in small primary tumors with unequivocal imaging findings. In this study, we compare the performance of ultra-high b-value diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) sequence (b = 2000 s/mm2) to standard DWI (b = 800 s/mm2) sequence in identifying malignant lesions in patients with HLRCC. METHODS: Twenty-eight patients (n = 18 HLRCC patients with 22 lesions, n = 10 controls) were independently evaluated by three abdominal radiologists with different levels of experience using four combinations of MRI sequences in two separate sessions (session 1: DWI with b-800, session 2: DWI with b-2000). T1 precontrast, T2-weighted (T2WI), and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) sequences were similar in both sessions. Each identified lesion was subjectively assessed using a six-point cancer likelihood score based on individual sequences and overall impression. RESULTS: The ability to distinguish benign versus malignant renal lesions improved with the use of b-2000 for more experienced radiologists (Reader 1 AUC: Session 1-0.649 and Session 2-0.938, p = 0.017; Reader 2 AUC: Session 1-0.781 and Session 2-0.921, p = 0.157); whereas no improvement was observed for the less experienced reader (AUC: Session 1-0.541 and Session 2-0.607, p = 0.699). CONCLUSION: The inclusion of ultra-high b-value DWI sequence improved the ability of classification of renal lesions in patients with HLRCC for experienced radiologists. Consideration should be given toward incorporation of DWI with b-2000 s/mm2 into existing renal MRI protocols.

The Next Paradigm Shift in the Management of Clear Cell Renal Cancer: Radiogenomics-Definition, Current Advances, and Future Directions.

With improved molecular characterization of clear cell renal cancer and advances in texture analysis as well as machine learning, diagnostic radiology is primed to enter personalized medicine with radiogenomics: the identification of relationships between tumor image features and underlying genomic expression. By developing surrogate image biomarkers, clinicians can augment their ability to non-invasively characterize a tumor and predict clinically relevant outcomes (i.e., overall survival; metastasis-free survival; or complete/partial response to treatment). It is thus important for clinicians to have a basic understanding of this nascent field, which can be difficult due to the technical complexity of many of the studies. We conducted a review of the existing literature for radiogenomics in clear cell kidney cancer, including original full-text articles until September 2021. We provide a basic description of radiogenomics in diagnostic radiology; summarize existing literature on relationships between image features and gene expression patterns, either computationally or by radiologists; and propose future directions to facilitate integration of this field into the clinical setting.

Is there a relationship between body mass index and diabetic retinopathy in type II diabetic patients? A cross sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is one of the most important leading causes of disability, premature mortality and Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) that is one of the diabetes-related complications in diabetic patients and the most common cause of vision loss in diabetic patients. The aim of the study was to evaluate the association between DR and body mass index (BMI) in those patients with T2DM. METHODS: This was a central-based, cross-sectional study on 518 diabetic patients. Their medical history and the laboratory data were collected. All the patients received examination of diabetic retinopathy by professional ophthalmologist. Based on their optic fundi findings, they were classified into five groups: No retinopathy, Mild Non-proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy (NPDR), Moderate NPDR, Severe NPDR, Proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). To analysis data SPSS v18 software used. Frequency, percent, mean and standard deviation were used for population description. t test, spearman correlation, partial correlation, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Chi-square test (χ2) were used for analytic analysis. Multivariate logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio. RESULTS: 518 patients with T2DM 198 male (38%), 320 female (62%) included in this study. The mean age of patients was 61.02 ± 10.18 years. The mean age at onset was 49.06 + 10.52 years and the mean duration of diabetes was 12.09 ± 7.81 years. There was a strong relationship between duration of diabetes and DR (P = 0.001). There were strong significant association between the development of DR and Insulin therapy (OR = 5.975). Correlation analysis between Retinopathy and BMI showed that BMI had inverse relationship with DR when BMI considered as a continuous variable (p-value = 0.009 and correlation coefficient = -0.467). CONCLUSION: BMI in diabetic patient is one of the most important clinical parameter for their health and disease progression. We conclude that BMI had inverse relationship with DR when BMI considered as a continuous variable.

Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor of the small intestine: A case report.

INTRODUCTION: Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT) is a rare benign tumor. Usually seen in children and adolescents, this inflammatory tumor can affect all the organs. PRESENTATION OF CASE: In this case, a five-year-old child experienced the sudden onset of symptoms and the enlargement of abdominal mass 20 days before referral. The patient did not have any symptoms of nausea, vomit, and abdominal pain. In the laparotomy, a large and sticky solid mass, attached to the ileum with the mesenteric origin, sized 10×8cm was observed and completely resected. DISCUSSION: This tumor rarely emerges in the small intestine, and there are a few patients with intestinal manifestation. In this case report, the tumor had an origin of the small intestine mesenteric and it had invaded to the ileum. CONCLUSION: Despite using some radiographic methods such as medical ultrasound and computerized tomography (CT) scan to diagnose the disease, the definitive diagnosis is merely possible thorough complete surgical resection.

Nodular Fasciitis of the Breast.

Nodular fasciitis of the breast is a rare benign pathology of soft tissue that is a consequence of fibroblastic hyperplasia within breast. It can mimic breast cancer clinically, radiologically, and histopathologically. A-43 year-old female with a painless mass within upper-lateral quadrant of her left breast complained of rapid and progressive growth during previous few days. No evidence of nipple discharge or sensation of pain was expressed. The mass was tender to palpation, but the size was too tiny to detect. The definitive diagnosis was established with sonography, which detected a hypoechogenic lesion, 10 mm in diameter. The excisional biopsy delivered a tissue composed of fusiform fibroblastic cells with bright ellipsoid-like nuclei and elevated nucleolus. Mitotic formations were also obvious. Low cellular and high cellular zones with hyaline fibrosis and erythrocyte accumulation existed, as well as a light lymphocytic infiltration. All of these features, in addition to adipocytic accumulation within the margins of this lesion, suggested a definitive diagnosis of Nodular fasciitis. The diagnosis of nodular fasciitis is difficult and often is indiscriminable from breast cancer, so paying close attention to this matter is critical.

Peganum Harmala (Aspand) Intoxication; a Case Report.

There are several reports in the literature indicating a great variety of pharmacological effects for peganum harmala or aspand such as sedative anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, antiviral and antiprotozoal. Some people believe that can be used for treatment of some organic or psychiatric disorders. We introduce a woman with history of long time constipation that was disappointed in novel medical treatment and decided to use comminuted Aspand to relieve her problem. Two hours after use, the intoxication symptoms manifested as blurred vision, phonophobia, floating feeling, and tinnitus ringing. Here we report the treatment process and outcome of this case.

Maternal mortality in Yazd Province, Iran.

INTRODUCTION: Five hundred thousand maternal deaths occur each year worldwide, many of which are in developing countries. The maternal mortality rate is a measure that demonstrates the degree of adequacy of prenatal care and of economic and social conditions. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency and causes of pregnancy-related mortality rates in Yazd Province. METHODS: This cross-sectional study examined the maternal deaths related to pregnancy that were recorded in Yazd Province, Iran, from 2002 to 2011. All maternal deaths that occurred during pregnancy, during delivery, and 42 days after birth were analyzed in this study. The data were collected through a questionnaire, and both direct and indirect causes of maternal deaths were determined. RESULTS: Forty pregnancy-related deaths occurred in this period, and the maternal mortality rate was 20.8 deaths per 100,000 live births. The mean age of death in the mothers in this study was 29.17. Fifty-five percent of women of the women who died delivered their babies by cesarean section, and only 20% of them delivered their babies vaginally. Bleeding was the most common cause of maternal mortality (30%), and it was associated directly with maternal mortality. Furthermore 20% of the mothers died due to heart disease and cardiac complications, which were associated indirectly with maternal mortality. CONCLUSION: Cesarean section and its complications were the main cause of death in many cases. Thus, providing a strategic plan to reduce the use of this procedure, educate mothers, and ensure adequate access to pre-maternal care and to care during pregnancy are the most important measures that can be taken to decrease the maternal mortality rate.

Effectiveness of Vitamin B2 versus Sodium Valproate in Migraine Prophylaxis: a randomized clinical trial.

BACKGROUND: Migraine headache is a prevalent periodical and neurological impairment that is associated with functional disorders. Regarding the side effects of available medications, research is continuing in an effort to identify new, effective pharmaceutical regimens with limited side effects. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of vitamin B2 versus sodium valproate in migraine prophylaxis. METHODS: This was a single-blind clinical trial conducted on 90 migraine patients in two parallel groups. The first group underwent vitamin B2 treatment (400 mg/day) for three months, and the second group was treated with sodium valproate (500 mg/day). The patients were examined at the beginning of the study and 4, 8, and 12 weeks later. After the administration of the drugs in both groups, we recorded the duration of migraine pain, the frequency of migraine episodes, and the severity of the headaches. Potential complications of this study that were measured were weight gain, dizziness, and gastrointestinal problems. RESULTS: The findings showed that the frequency, median duration per month, and severity of the headaches decreased in both groups, but the difference between them was not significant (p > 0.05). However, there were significantly fewer side effects in vitamin B2 group (p = 0.005). CONCLUSION: Sodium valproate and vitamin B2 have similar effects on the reduction of migraine attacks, but vitamin B2 had fewer complications and fewer adverse effects; therefore, vitamin B2 can be administered to patients who are prohibited from taking sodium valproate or who have adverse side effects when they take it.

Comparison of Pap Smear and Colposcopy in Screening for Cervical Cancer in Patients with Secondary Immunodeficiency.

INTRODUCTION: Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women worldwide. The sensitivity of conventional Pap smear in detecting cervical lesions before cervical cancer is 51%, which means the false negative value is 49%. The aim of this study was to compare two methods for screening for cervical cancer in patients with secondary immunodeficiency, i.e., the conventional Pap smear and colposcopy. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 101 immunodeficient patients who were referred to the Gynecologic Clinic at Shahid Sadughi Hospital in Yazd from March 2011 to August 2012. All patients underwent the Pap test, a colposcopy, and a cervical biopsy, with the latter being considered as the gold-standard test. RESULTS: The most frequency of immunodeficiency was noted among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (53.3%), and this was followed by patients who were undergoing chemotherapy (30.7%), patients with lupus erythematosus (12.9%), and patients with AIDS (3%). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of the Pap smear were 18.2, 98.5, 85.5, 71.3, and 72.2%, respectively. The respective values for colposcopy were 66.7, 98.94, 80, 97.9, and 97%, respectively. CONCLUSION: In this study the accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and negative predictive values of colposcopy were higher than those for the Pap smear in detecting high-grade, cervical, pre-malignant lesions (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia: CIN ≥ 2). Therefore, an annual colposcopy is advised for secondary immunodeficient patients instead of a Pap smear.

The Clinicopathologic Characteristics and 5-year Survival Rate of Epithelial Ovarian Cancer in Yazd, Iran.

INTRODUCTION: Ovarian cancer is the second most common malignancy in women, the most common cause of gynecologic cancer deaths, and most patients have advanced stage disease at the time of diagnosis. The purpose of this study was to estimate the 5-year survival of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer based on age, tumor histology, stage of disease, and type of treatment. METHODS: This study was conducted on 120 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer referred to Shahid Sadoughi hospital and Shah Vali oncology clinic of Yazd from 2006 to 2012. Demographic data and patient records were studied to evaluate the treatment outcome, pathology of the tumor, and stage of disease. Finally, the overall survival rate and tumor-free survival of patients was assessed. RESULTS: The mean patient age was 53.87± 14.11 years. Most participants had stage I (36.7%) or stage II (35%) disease. Serous adenocarcinoma (57.6%) was the most common pathology found in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer. The overall survival of patients in this study was significantly associated with the histological tumor type (p = 0.000) and disease stage (p = 0.0377). Stage I (84.18%) and serous adenocarcinoma (72.81%) demonstrated the best survival. The tumor-free survival rates were not associated with histology types (p = 0.079), surgical procedure (p = 0.18), or chemotherapy (p = 0.18). CONCLUSION: The survival of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer was significantly associated with disease stage. Serous adenocarcinoma also had the best prognosis among the pathologies studied. Therefore, early detection of ovarian cancer can substantially increase the survival rate.

Diagnostic Value of the Risk of Malignancy Index (RMI) for Detection of Pelvic Malignancies Compared with Pathology.

INTRODUCTION: Pelvic masses are among most the common causes of patient admission into gynecology clinics and one of the most common reasons for referral to gynecologic oncology departments due to the risk of uterine or ovarian malignancies. The aim of this study is to compare the four indices of the risk of malignancy index (RMI 1-4), as a combination of menstrual status, radiological findings, and serum CA125 concentration, for discrimination of benign from malignant pelvic masses. METHODS: This retrospective descriptive and analytic study was conducted on 200 patients with pelvic mass, post-surgery, and who were referred to the oncology department in Shahid Sadoughi hospital of Yazd (Iran) between June 2007 and September 2011. Data regarding demographics, pathology reports, paraclinical and clinical tests were analyzed. The four RMI indices were separately used for determination of benign vs. malignant masses using the optimized cutoff points, ROC curve, sensitivity, specificity, predictive value of positive and negative, and accuracy. Finally, p value for each index was calculated, and a final discrimination power was measured by using SPSS version 17 software. RESULTS: The calculated p values in the four RMI indices in ultrasound findings indicated statistical significance, and the RMI 2 showed the highest level of accuracy or diagnostic performance. RMI 2 had a cutoff point of 90, an under-chart area 86.7, 79.36% sensitivity, 78.95% specificity, 58.44%, positive predictive value, 90.08% negative predictive value, and 78.93% accuracy, and a p value of 0.004. However, this relationship was found not to be meaningful using CT scan images. CONCLUSIONS: Using RMI 2 for differentiation of malignant from benign pelvic masses is a reliable method with ultrasound findings.

Cognitive Behavioral Development in Children Following Maternal Postpartum Depression: A Review Article.

Mothers' constitute is a very important part of infants' social environment and mediate their experience with the surrounding world. Postpartum depression, which is considered one of the most common and important psychiatric disorders, affects 10-15% of mothers, its causes are different. By investigating various sources, some effects of this disorder have been observed on the cognitive development of children, particularly among boys, such as language, intelligence quotient (IQ), and behavioral problems. Thus, it is imperative to study the effects of postpartum depression on children's growth and development and to identify methods of reducing these effects. This review indicates that postpartum depression in mothers reduces children's cognitive performance. The adverse effects of postpartum depression on children's development seem to be mediated by the mother's interpersonal behavior and the infant gender. The review of previous studies shows that postpartum depression reduces children's cognitive performance by impairing maternal mental and behavioral care.

Investigation of Risk Factors, Stage and Outcome in Patients with Gestational Trophoblastic Disease since 2001 to 2011 in Iran-Yazd.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Gestational trophoblastic disease (GTN) is one of the high-risk forms of pregnancy that requires a lot of attention in terms of research studies, considering its incidence and the importance of the disease in advanced form. The aim of this study was to investigate the risk factors and clinical procedure of patients with gestational trophoblastic disease from 2001 to 2002. METHOD OF STUDY: This is a retrospective descriptive study, which was carried out on 150 patients with trophoblastic disease. These patients' files were obtained from Shohadaye Kargar and Shahid Sadoughi hospitals and women's oncology offices of Yazd city. The patients were contacted one by one and their disease situation was determined. The data obtained were recorded in a questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS software. RESULT: The results indicated that the average age of the patients was 27.65 ± 8.22 with variations in age ranging from 15 to 35 year. In addition, majorities were in the age group of 20 to 40 years. 43.2 percent of the women were affected during their first gestation. 4% had molar gestation record, and 9.4% had positive family record. Mean time of survival was 93.38 ± 0.62 months (MIN ± SE), and only one died owing to chemotherapy complication. Vaginal bleeding (90%) was the most common symptom. 54.6 percent of the disease had complete mole, 30% had incomplete mole, 8.6% had invasive mole, 4.6% had choriocarcinoma and 2% had placenta site trophoblastic tumor (PSTT). Among the patients studied, 28.7% were benign in GTN group while 71.3 % were malignant in the GTN group. The malignant patients were divided into three groups per risk, and 41.2% were in the high-risk group. There was theca-lutein cyst in 54% of the patients, which had a significant relationship with the disease risk of persistent GTN. CONCLUSION: Choriocarcinoma and invasive mole is the most malignant pathology. There was significant relationship between disease interval and the beginning of chemotherapy, and theca lutein cyst and persistent GTN.