Intratumoral therapies in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: A systematic review and future perspectives.

BACKGROUND: Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) presents an ideal scenario for intratumoral therapies (IT), due to its local recurrence pattern and frequent superficial extension. IT therapies aim to effect tumor regression by directly injecting antineoplastic agents into lesions. However, there is a lack of updated evidence regarding IT therapies in HNSCC. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A systematic literature search (CRD42023462291) was conducted using WebOfScience, ClinicalTrials.gov, and conference abstracts from ESMO and ASCO, identifying for IT clinical trials in patients with HNSCC, from database creation to September 12th, 2023. Efficacy as well as safety (grade ≥ 3 treatment-related adverse events[trAEs]) were reported. RESULTS: After evaluation of 1180 articles identified by the systematic search, 31 studies treating 948 patients were included. IT injectables were categorized as chemotherapies with or without electroporation (k = 4, N = 268), oncolytic viruses, plasmids, and bacteria-based (k = 16, N = 446), immunotherapies and EGFR-based therapies (k = 5, N = 160), radioenhancer particles (k = 2, N = 68), and calcium electroporation (k = 1, n = 6). EGFR-antisense plasmids, NBTXR3 radioenhancer and immune innate agonists show best overall response rates, at 83 %, 81 % and 44 % respectively. Eleven (35 %) studies added systemic therapy or radiotherapy to the IT injections. No study used predictive biomarkers to guide patient selection. 97 % studies were phase I-II. Safety-wise, electroporation and epinephrine-based injectable trials had significant local symptoms such as necrosis, fistula formation and post-injection dysphagia. Treatment-related tumor haemorrhages of various grades were described in several trials. Grade ≥ 3 trAEs attributable to the other therapies mainly comprised general symptoms such as fatigue. There were 3 injectable-related deaths across the systematic review. CONCLUSION: This is the first review to summarize all available evidence of IT in HNSCC. As of today, IT therapies lack sufficient evidence to recommend their use in clinical practice. Continuing research on potential molecules, patient selection, safe administration of injections and controlled randomized trials are needed to assess their added benefit.

Response Evaluation Criteria in Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Cancers: Which to Use and How to Measure.

As the management of gastrointestinal malignancy has evolved, tumor response assessment has expanded from size-based assessments to those that include tumor enhancement, in addition to functional data such as those derived from PET and diffusion-weighted imaging. Accurate interpretation of tumor response therefore requires knowledge of imaging modalities used in gastrointestinal malignancy, anticancer therapies, and tumor biology. Targeted therapies such as immunotherapy pose additional considerations due to unique imaging response patterns and drug toxicity; as a consequence, immunotherapy response criteria have been developed. Some gastrointestinal malignancies require assessment with tumor-specific criteria when assessing response, often to guide clinical management (such as watchful waiting in rectal cancer or suitability for surgery in pancreatic cancer). Moreover, anatomic measurements can underestimate therapeutic response when applied to molecular-targeted therapies or locoregional therapies in hypervascular malignancies such as hepatocellular carcinoma. In these cases, responding tumors may exhibit morphologic changes including cystic degeneration, necrosis, and hemorrhage, often without significant reduction in size. Awareness of pitfalls when interpreting gastrointestinal tumor response is required to correctly interpret response assessment imaging and guide appropriate oncologic management. Data-driven image analyses such as radiomics have been investigated in a variety of gastrointestinal tumors, such as identifying those more likely to respond to therapy or recur, with the aim of delivering precision medicine. Multimedia-enhanced radiology reports can facilitate communication of gastrointestinal tumor response by automatically embedding response categories, key data, and representative images. ©RSNA, 2024 Test Your Knowledge questions for this article are available in the supplemental material.

Head and neck mucosal melanoma: radiological considerations and UK imaging guidelines.

PURPOSE: Awareness of head and neck mucosal melanoma (HNMM) is important, as incorrect work-up can impact on the investigation and management of this rare and aggressive cancer. Following on from the 2020 HNMM UK guidelines, we set out the imaging recommendations and their rationale. To illustrate the key imaging characteristics, we also include a case series from our centre. METHODS: All HNMM cases managed at our institution from January 2016 to January 2021 were identified, and the available imaging for each patient was reviewed. For each patient, the age, gender and location of primary tumour was recorded together with key staging and diagnostic imaging parameters. RESULTS: A total of 14 patients were identified. The median age was 65 years with a female to male ratio of 1.33:1. Primary tumours were sinonasal in location in 93% of cases, with 7% of patients having metastatic neck nodes at presentation and 21% of cases having distant metastatic disease at presentation. CONCLUSION: This data set is in general concordance with other published series regarding the sinonasal origin of the vast majority of HNMM tumours along with the proportion of patients with metastatic neck nodes and distant metastases at presentation. We recommend dual-modality imaging with computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of primary tumours whenever possible. In the systematic staging of HNMM, positron emission tomography (PET)-CT should be strongly considered, together with MRI of the brain. Pre-biopsy imaging of HNMM tumours is advisable whenever possible.

Interpretability of radiomics models is improved when using feature group selection strategies for predicting molecular and clinical targets in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma: insights from the TRACERx Renal study.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this work is to evaluate the performance of radiomics predictions for a range of molecular, genomic and clinical targets in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) and demonstrate the impact of novel feature selection strategies and sub-segmentations on model interpretability. METHODS: Contrast-enhanced CT scans from the first 101 patients recruited to the TRACERx Renal Cancer study (NCT03226886) were used to derive radiomics classification models to predict 20 molecular, histopathology and clinical target variables. Manual 3D segmentation was used in conjunction with automatic sub-segmentation to generate radiomics features from the core, rim, high and low enhancing sub-regions, and the whole tumour. Comparisons were made between two classification model pipelines: a Conventional pipeline reflecting common radiomics practice, and a Proposed pipeline including two novel feature selection steps designed to improve model interpretability. For both pipelines nested cross-validation was used to estimate prediction performance and tune model hyper-parameters, and permutation testing was used to evaluate the statistical significance of the estimated performance measures. Further model robustness assessments were conducted by evaluating model variability across the cross-validation folds. RESULTS: Classification performance was significant (p < 0.05, H0:AUROC = 0.5) for 11 of 20 targets using either pipeline and for these targets the AUROCs were within ± 0.05 for the two pipelines, except for one target where the Proposed pipeline performance increased by > 0.1. Five of these targets (necrosis on histology, presence of renal vein invasion, overall histological stage, linear evolutionary subtype and loss of 9p21.3 somatic alteration marker) had AUROC > 0.8. Models derived using the Proposed pipeline contained fewer feature groups than the Conventional pipeline, leading to more straightforward model interpretations without loss of performance. Sub-segmentations lead to improved performance and/or improved interpretability when predicting the presence of sarcomatoid differentiation and tumour stage. CONCLUSIONS: Use of the Proposed pipeline, which includes the novel feature selection methods, leads to more interpretable models without compromising prediction performance. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT03226886 (TRACERx Renal).

Saline-aided ultrasound-guided transoral biopsy of retropharyngeal nodes in head and neck cancer: A feasibility study of five patients.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of the novel technique of intra-cavitary saline-aided ultrasound (US) guided transoral biopsy or excision of retropharyngeal nodes. METHODS: We followed the IDEAL 2a framework to develop this technique. Procedures were performed between July 2020 and July 2022 at a tertiary head and neck center. RESULTS: Five patients in total underwent an ultrasound-guided biopsy of a retropharyngeal node. They underwent seven procedures between them: three transoral robotic surgery (TORS) procedures, three fine needle aspirations (FNA) and/or core biopsy procedures, and one US assessment under general anesthetic. The six patients with histology taken (three TORS and three FNA/core biopsies) all had diagnostically adequate samples enabling appropriate treatment planning. There were no significant complications from the procedure. CONCLUSION: Saline-aided US-guided biopsy of a retropharyngeal node is a safe and useful tool enabling accurate tissue sampling and tumor excision and ongoing appropriate treatment planning.

Incidentally detected 18 F-FDG PET-CT-avid thyroid nodules in patients with advanced malignancy: long-term oncological outcomes from a single-centre retrospective cohort.

OBJECTIVES: In this retrospective study, we assessed the clinical outcomes of patients with a primary malignancy who had incidentally detected thyroid avidity on their staging 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET-computed tomography ( 18 F-FDG PET-CT) examinations. METHODS: A focused retrospective search was made using a Radiology Information System to identify only patients with positive thyroid nodules on their 18 F-FDG PET-CT imaging between January 2012 and December 2017. Patient demographics, principal oncological diagnosis, and stage were recorded. The sonographic appearances of thyroid nodules, number of fine needle aspiration (FNA) attempts, final cytology, management plan, and clinical outcome were recorded. Follow-up records were available for between 2 and 7 years. RESULTS: Following exclusions, 136 patients were found to have incidental thyroid avidity on their 18 F-FDG PET-CT. A total of 50 of these patients proceeded to thyroid ultrasound assessment. Of these, 37 patients underwent FNA (average 1.3 FNA attempts) with 17 having atypical cytology and 6 diagnosed with an incidental thyroid cancer either by FNA or thyroidectomy. Four patients who underwent surgery had benign pathology. All thyroid cancers identified were indolent papillary cancers without any impact on the treatment plan or survival. CONCLUSION: The clinical outcomes of patients with an established primary malignancy are determined by their primary cancer and not by incidentally detected thyroid cancer. It may therefore be reasonable not to formally investigate a proportion of incidental 18 F-FDG PET-CT positive thyroid nodules where added benefit is unlikely. In such cases, a 'watch-and-wait' approach to the thyroid might be considered more appropriate.

Interobserver variation in clinical target volume (CTV) delineation for stereotactic radiotherapy to non-spinal bone metastases in prostate cancer: CT, MRI and PET/CT fusion.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The use of SBRT for the treatment of oligometastatic prostate cancer is increasing rapidly. While consensus guidelines are available for non-spinal bone metastases practice continues to vary widely. The aim of this study is to look at inter-observer variability in the contouring of prostate cancer non-spinal bone metastases with different imaging modalities. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 15 metastases from 13 patients treated at our centre were selected. 4 observers independently contoured clinical target volumes (CTV) on planning CT alone, planning CT with MRI fusion, planning CT with PET-CT fusion and planning CT with both MRI and PET-CT fusion combined. The mean inter-observer agreement on each modality was compared by measuring the delineated volume, generalized conformity index (CIgen), and the distance of the centre of mass (dCOM), calculated per metastasis and imaging modality. RESULTS: Mean CTV volume delineated on planning CT with MRI and PET-CT fusion combined was significantly larger compared to other imaging modalities (p = 0.0001). CIgen showed marked variation between modalities with the highest agreement between planning CT + PET-CT (mean CIgen 0.55, range 0.32-0.73) and planning CT + MRI + PET-CT (mean CIgen 0.59, range 0.34-0.73). dCOM showed small variations between imaging modalities but a significantly shorter distance found on planning CT + PET-CT when compared with planning CT + PET-CT + MRI combined (p = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: Highest consistency in CTV delineation between observers was seen with planning CT + PET-CT and planning CT + PET-CT + MRI combined.

Radiomics in Oncology: A Practical Guide.

Radiomics refers to the extraction of mineable data from medical imaging and has been applied within oncology to improve diagnosis, prognostication, and clinical decision support, with the goal of delivering precision medicine. The authors provide a practical approach for successfully implementing a radiomic workflow from planning and conceptualization through manuscript writing. Applications in oncology typically are either classification tasks that involve computing the probability of a sample belonging to a category, such as benign versus malignant, or prediction of clinical events with a time-to-event analysis, such as overall survival. The radiomic workflow is multidisciplinary, involving radiologists and data and imaging scientists, and follows a stepwise process involving tumor segmentation, image preprocessing, feature extraction, model development, and validation. Images are curated and processed before segmentation, which can be performed on tumors, tumor subregions, or peritumoral zones. Extracted features typically describe the distribution of signal intensities and spatial relationship of pixels within a region of interest. To improve model performance and reduce overfitting, redundant and nonreproducible features are removed. Validation is essential to estimate model performance in new data and can be performed iteratively on samples of the dataset (cross-validation) or on a separate hold-out dataset by using internal or external data. A variety of noncommercial and commercial radiomic software applications can be used. Guidelines and artificial intelligence checklists are useful when planning and writing up radiomic studies. Although interest in the field continues to grow, radiologists should be familiar with potential pitfalls to ensure that meaningful conclusions can be drawn. Online supplemental material is available for this article. Published under a CC BY 4.0 license.

What is the role of the surgeon in the management of head and neck mucosal melanoma in the immunotherapy era?

INTRODUCTION: The advent of immunotherapy has impacted both the management and, to a lesser extent, the outcomes for patients with head and neck mucosal melanoma. As a consequence, one might expect that the role of the surgeon would be limited to the diagnostic work-up and that systemic therapies would be the mainstay of treatment. METHODS AND RESULTS: Here, we present the surgical aspects of the recently published United Kingdom Head and Neck Mucosal Melanoma Guideline to highlight the continued role of surgeons in the management of this disease. We highlight key areas where surgeons remain the lead clinician and reinforce the multidisciplinary requirement for exemplary patient care. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the advent of immunotherapy, surgeons continue to have a key role to play in this disease. When indicated, it is essential that appropriate surgery is offered by a suitably experienced team.

On-treatment immune prognostic score for patients with relapsed and/or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma treated with immunotherapy.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have suggested that inflammatory markers (neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and fibrinogen) are prognostic biomarkers in patients with a variety of solid cancers, including those treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). We aimed to develop a model that predicts response and survival in patients with relapsed and/or metastatic (R/M) head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) treated with immunotherapy. METHODS: Analysis of 100 consecutive patients with unresectable R/M HNSCC who were treated with ICI. Baseline and on-treatment (day 28) NLR, fibrinogen and LDH were calculated and correlated with response, progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) using univariate and multivariate analyses. The optimal cut-off values were derived using maximally selected log-rank statistics. RESULTS: Low baseline NLR and fibrinogen levels were associated with response. There was a statistically significant correlation between on-treatment NLR and fibrinogen and best overall response. On-treatment high NLR and raised fibrinogen were significantly associated with poorer outcome. In multivariate analysis, on-treatment NLR (≥4) and on-treatment fibrinogen (≥4 ng/mL) showed a significant negative correlation with OS and PFS. Using these cut-off points, we generated an on-treatment score for OS and PFS (0-2 points). The derived scoring system shows appropriate discrimination and suitability for OS (HR 2.4, 95% CI 1.7 to 3.4, p<0.0001, Harrell's C 0.67) and PFS (HR 1.8, 95% CI 1.4 to 2.3, p<0.0001, Harrell's C 0.68). In the absence of an external validation cohort, results of fivefold cross-validation of the score and evaluation of median OS and PFS on the Kaplan-Meier survival distribution between trained and test data exhibited appropriate accuracy and concordance of the model. CONCLUSIONS: NLR and fibrinogen levels are simple, inexpensive and readily available biomarkers that could be incorporated into an on-treatment scoring system and used to help predict survival and response to ICI in patients with R/M HNSCC.

Detection and staging of radio-recurrent prostate cancer using multiparametric MRI.

OBJECTIVE: We determined the sensitivity and specificity of multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (MP-MRI) in detection of locally recurrent prostate cancer and extra prostatic extension in the post-radical radiotherapy setting. Histopathological reference standard was whole-mount prostatectomy specimens. We also assessed for any added value of the dynamic contrast enhancement (DCE) sequence in detection and staging of local recurrence. METHODS: This was a single centre retrospective study. Participants were selected from a database of males treated with salvage prostatectomy for locally recurrent prostate cancer following radiotherapy. All underwent pre-operative prostate-specific antigen assay, positron emission tomography CT, MP-MRI and transperineal template prostate mapping biopsy prior to salvage prostatectomy. MP-MRI performance was assessed using both Prostate Imaging-Reporting and Data System v. 2 and a modified scoring system for the post-treatment setting. RESULTS: 24 patients were enrolled. Using Prostate Imaging-Reporting and Data System v. 2, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value was 64%, 94%, 98% and 36%. MP-MRI under staged recurrent cancer in 63%. A modified scoring system in which DCE was used as a co-dominant sequence resulted in improved diagnostic sensitivity (61%-76%) following subgroup analysis. CONCLUSION: Our results show MP-MRI has moderate sensitivity (64%) and high specificity (94%) in detecting radio-recurrent intraprostatic disease, though disease tends to be under quantified and under staged. Greater emphasis on dynamic contrast images in overall scoring can improve diagnostic sensitivity. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: MP-MRI tends to under quantify and under stage radio-recurrent prostate cancer. DCE has a potentially augmented role in detecting recurrent tumour compared with the de novo setting. This has relevance in the event of any future modified MP-MRI scoring system for the irradiated gland.

The role of CT chest in screening for asymptomatic COVID-19 infection in self-isolating patients prior to elective oncological surgery: findings from a UK Cancer Hub.

OBJECTIVES: In accordance with initial guidance from the Royal College of Surgeons and Royal College of Radiologists, we evaluated the utility of CT of the chest in the exclusion of asymptomatic COVID-19 infection prior to elective cancer surgery on self-isolating patients during the pandemic. METHODS: All surgical referrals without symptoms of COVID-19 infection in April and May 2020 were included. Patient records were retrospectively reviewed. Screening included CT chest for major thoracic and abdominal surgery. CTs were reported according to British Society of Thoracic Imaging guidelines and correlated with reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and surgical outcomes. RESULTS: The prevalence of RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 infection in our screened population was 0.7% (5/681). 240 pre-operative CTs were performed. 3.8% (9/240) of CTs were reported as abnormal, only one of which was RT-PCR positive. 2% (5/240) of cases had surgery postponed based on CT results. All nine patients with CTs reported as abnormal have had surgery, all without complication. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of asymptomatic COVID-19 infection in our screened population was low. The pre-test probability of CT chest in asymptomatic, self-isolating patients is consequently low. CT can produce false positives in this setting, introducing unnecessary delay in surgery for a small proportion of cases. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: Self-isolation, clinical assessment and RT-PCR are effective at minimising COVID-19 related surgical risk. The addition of CT chest is unhelpful. Our data have particular relevance during the second wave of infection and in the recovery phase.

Head and neck mucosal melanoma: The United Kingdom national guidelines.

The United Kingdom head and neck mucosal melanoma guideline development group used an evidence-based systematic approach to make recommendations in key areas of uncertainty in the field, including accurate diagnosis and staging; the appropriate treatment pathway including surgery, adjuvant radiation and new systemic treatments, such as targeted agents and immunotherapy; and the surveillance of patients after treatment. The guidelines were sent for international peer review and have been accredited by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. A summary of key recommendations is presented. The full documents are available on the Melanoma Focus website (https://melanomafocus.com/activities/mucosal-guidelines/mucosal-melanoma-resources/).

Integrated surgery and radiology: trans-oral robotic surgery guided by real-time radiologist-operated intraoral ultrasound.

PURPOSE: We aimed to evaluate the feasibility and utility of intraoral ultrasound as a real-time guidance technique in trans-oral robotic surgery (TORS). METHODS: We report our early experiences of radiologist-operated intraoral ultrasound during TORS, providing information on tumour margin and important adjacent structures. Resection specimens were sonographically imaged for margin assessment. RESULTS: Four patients underwent ultrasound-guided TORS, with a close correlation between intraoperative and preoperative imaging in each case. The tumour was fully excised in three cases (one did not proceed due to difficult access). No ultrasound-related adverse events occurred, surgical margins were negative, and the treated patients are currently in a state of remission, with functional swallows. CONCLUSION: Intraoperative ultrasound can allow previously inaccessible disease to be robotically resected with confidence. Sonographic interrogation of the resected specimen correlated closely with histological margin analysis, and a novel technique of using saline to improve ultrasound conductance and therefore image quality is described.

Association Between Preoperative Magnetic Resonance Imaging-based Urethral Parameters and Continence Recovery Following Robot-assisted Radical Prostatectomy.

BACKGROUND: Studies demonstrated the significance of membranous urethral length (MUL) as a predictor of continence following robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP). There are other magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) parameters that might be linked to continence outcome. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between preoperative urethral parameters on MRI and continence outcome, to estimate the risk of incontinence using different cut-off values, and to assess interobserver variability in measuring urethral parameters. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Patients with localised prostate cancer who underwent RARP were retrospectively reviewed. Baseline patient characteristics, perioperative, and pathological outcomes were assessed. Continence was defined as no pad or a safety pad with <2g/24h pad weight. OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Several MRI variables were measured by a uroradiologist, a uro-oncology fellow, and a urologist. Binary logistic regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of incontinence. Interclass correlation was used to evaluate interobserver variability. RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS: A total of 190 patients met the study inclusion criteria. The mean MUL was 14.6mm. Age and MUL were significantly associated with incontinence outcome. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for continence based on MUL was 0.78 at 12 mo. The risk of incontinence in patients with MUL of <10mm was 27.8% (13.8% and 39.1% for patients aged <65 and >65 yr respectively). Conversely, the risk of incontinence with MUL >15mm was 2.7% (1.5% and 4.5% for patients aged <65 and >65 yr, respectively). The concordance rate between different observers was 89% for coronal MUL, but 77%, 74%, and 62% for sagittal MUL, membranous urethral thickness, and intraprostatic urethral length, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirmed the significance of MUL for the continence outcome following RARP. There was also excellent consistency in measuring MUL values between different observers. PATIENT SUMMARY: Although further studies would be required to verify our findings, we support the significance of membranous urethral length in predicting the risk of incontinence and the need to incorporate it as part of preoperative assessment and counselling. This can reliably be measured by urologists and can further facilitate a patient-tailored approach to radical treatment of prostate cancer.

Paratesticular Sarcoma: Typical Presentation, Imaging Features, and Clinical Challenges.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the major imaging features, together with clinical data, of paratesticular sarcomas. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed of available imaging and clinical data of 77 consecutive cases of paratesticular sarcoma referred to the soft tissue sarcoma center at the Royal Marsden hospital between January 2006 and January 2015. RESULTS: Of the total cases, 87% had been referred postoperatively, 43% of which had been imaged preoperatively and 24% of which required re-resection due to incomplete initial excision. On imaging, abnormal fat was present in 73% of paratesticular liposarcomas, with solid or enhancing components indicating high-grade tumors. Leiomyosarcomas and rhabdomyosarcomas were all purely solid masses. CONCLUSION: Paratesticular sarcomas are rare, and lack of awareness may compromise treatment and outcome. They may be mistaken for common clinical problems such as inguinal hernias and epididymal cysts. Surgery for these presumed diagnoses may result in inadequate clearance and an increased risk of recurrence. A low threshold for imaging atypical paratesticular masses is needed, as this may better inform management.

Development of training-related health care software by a team of clinical educators: their experience, from conception to piloting.

The difficulties of producing useful, bespoke, and affordable information technology systems for large health care organizations are well publicized, following several high-profile endeavors in the UK. This article describes the experience of a small group of clinical radiologists and their collaborators in producing an information technology system - from conception to piloting. This system, called Trainee Tracker, enables automated target date recalculation of trainee milestones, depending on their work patterns and other individual circumstances. It utilizes an automated email alert system to notify the educational supervisors and trainees of approaching and elapsed target dates, in order to identify trainees in difficulty early and address their training needs accordingly. The challenges and advantages, both common to and contrasting with larger-scale projects, are also considered. The benefits of the development team's "agile" approach to software development and the lessons learned will be of interest to medical educators, particularly those with expertise in e-portfolios and other training-related software.

Tracheal CT morphology: correlation with distribution and extent of thoracic adipose tissue.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the relationship between adipose tissue measurements and anterior bowing of the posterior tracheal wall in a large nonselected group of patients undergoing CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA). METHODS: Consecutive patients undergoing CTPA over a 4-month period were analyzed retrospectively. Using an adapted scoring system (posterior bowing, flattening, mild/moderate or severe anterior bowing of the posterior tracheal membrane), the axial morphology and cross-sectional area of the trachea at the narrowest point and 1 cm above the aortic arch were evaluated. Measurements of adipose tissue were taken (anterior mediastinal fat width, sagittal upper abdominal diameter and subcutaneous fat thickness at the level of the costophrenic angle). Relationships between tracheal morphology and measurements of adipose tissue were analyzed. RESULTS: 296 patients were included (120 males, 176 females, mean age 59 years, range 19-90). Severe anterior bowing of the posterior tracheal wall correlated with increasing sagittal upper abdominal diameter (p = 0.002). Mild/moderate and severe anterior bowing of the posterior tracheal wall correlated with increasing mediastinal fat width (p = 0.000 and p = 0.031, respectively). Tracheal cross-sectional area was inversely correlated with increasing subcutaneous fat thickness (p = 0.022). CONCLUSION: The findings demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between CT tracheal morphology and adipose tissue measurements in a large nonselected population. KEY POINTS: • There is increasing interest in the effects of obesity on the airways. • A relationship between anterior bowing of the posterior tracheal wall and adipose tissue measurements is demonstrated. • This is of clinical relevance in an increasingly obese population. • Further studies with functional correlation are required.

The value of combined assessment of vertebral fractures with 99mTc MDP scintigraphy and MRI in selecting and planning percutaneous vertebroplasty.

BACKGROUND: Percutaneous vertebroplasty is a minimally invasive radiological procedure intended for relieving painful vertebral fractures. Suitability depends largely on fracture age, with acute osteoporotic fractures being most appropriate. Selection and planning usually involves either Tc MDP scintigraphy or MRI. There is evidence indicating that either modality is predictive of response to vertebroplasty, but there is limited evidence promoting their combined use. AIM: The aim of the study was to establish the degree of concordance between MRI and Tc MDP scintigraphy in vertebral fracture assessment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Our institution routinely uses both MRI and Tc MDP scintigraphy in vertebroplasty planning. This retrospective analysis included 39 patients, with a total of 73 vertebral fractures, all treated with vertebroplasty. The fractures were classified according to fracture age, aetiology and intermodality concordance. RESULTS: The overall concordance between MRI and Tc MDP scintigraphy was 63%. Almost twice as many fractures classified as 'acute/ subacute' on MRI were so classified on Tc MDP scintigraphy. CONCLUSION: Using MRI without Tc MDP scintigraphy, 48.2% of the potentially suitable vertebroplasty targets (37% of the total vertebral lesions) would likely have been overlooked. Clearly, Tc MDP scintigraphy and MRI provide different but complementary information on vertebral fractures, and these results support the use of dual-modality assessment in vertebroplasty selection and planning.