Parasitism of terrestrial gastropods by medically-important nematodes in Brazil.

An ample variety of parasitic associations are found between mollusks and nematodes, in which the mollusks may act as intermediate, paratenic or definitive hosts. Some free-living nematodes, in particular those of the order Rhabditida, are also found frequently in terrestrial mollusks. The present study reviews the results of the parasitological testing on samples of terrestrial mollusks conducted at the Brazilian National Reference Laboratory for Schistosomiasis and Malacology between 2008 and 2021. The samples were supplied primarily by the public health authorities from the different regions of Brazil, but also by research institutions and general population. The mollusks were processed individually and the obtained larvae were identified from their morphology and, whenever necessary, by molecular analysis. A total of 1,919 service orders were registered during the period, including 19,758 mollusk specimens collected from 23 of the 26 Brazilian states, as well as the Federal District, totalizing 145 municipalities. There was a marked predominance of the synanthropic species that are widely distributed in Brazil-Achatina fulica (87.08%), Bulimulus tenuissimus (4.18%), Bradybaena similaris (2.06%), and Sarasinula linguaeformis (1.50%). Of the 16,750 terrestrial mollusks examined, nematodes were recorded in 1,308 service orders, with the predominance of the superfamily Metastrongyloidea, in 616 service orders. They included Angiostrongylus cantonensis, rat lungworm, which was found in 252 samples, and Aelurostrongylus abstrusus in 145 samples. Free-living nematodes were found in 952 samples, Ancylostoma caninum and Cruzia tentaculata (previously identified as Strongyluris sp.) in one and 275 samples, respectively, and other parasites in 210 samples (not identified). The results highlight the diversity of the associations between nematodes and terrestrial mollusks in Brazil, in particular invasive and synanthropic species, with emphasis on the giant African land snail, Achatina fulica. They demonstrate the prominent role of this species of mollusk in the transmission of medically-important nematodes, which affect the health of both humans and animals, in particular eosinophilic meningitis, which is caused by Angiostrongylus cantonensis. This reinforces the need for more studies, and justify the growing demand for information as well as parasitological diagnosis of this mollusk, given its wide distribution in Brazil and its impact as an urban pest.

Diversity of non-marine gastropods of the Fiocruz Atlantic Forest Biological Station and adjacents urban areas, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil.

Our main objective was to perform a preliminary survey of the non-marine gastropods at the Estação Biológica Fiocruz Mata Atlântica (EFMA) and its adjacent urban areas, also considering samples from other localities of the Parque Estadual da Pedra Branca received as donation, in Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. Infection by larval helminths of medical and veterinary importance was also investigated in 348 specimens of five freshwater species and two specimens of the terrestrial species Achatina fulica. In all, 584 samples of molluscs from 34 collection sites were obtained. They represented 31 species classified in 16 families. Fifteen species were exclusive to the EFMA area. In the urban area mainly exotic and/or synanthropic species were found. Some of them were found in the forest border as well. The freshwater Biomphalaria tenagophila, an intermediate host of the trematode that causes schistosomiasis mansoni, was found parasitized by Xiphidiocercarie cercariae and the Afro-asiatic Melanoides tuberculata by Pleurolophocercus cercaria. The finding of endemic and exotic species, including transmitters of parasites, demonstrate the importance of fast surveys such as the present study. However, considering the great diversity of endemic molluscs found in a relatively small part of the EFMA, we highlight the necessity of further additional studies.

CARES 3.0: a two stage system combining feature-based recognition and edge-based segmentation for CIMT measurement on a multi-institutional ultrasound database of 300 images.

The intima-media thickness of the carotid artery (CIMT) is a validated marker of atherosclerosis. Accurate CIMT measurement can be performed by specifically designed computer algorithms. We improved a previous CIMT measurement technique by introducing a smart heuristic search for the lumen-intima (LI) and media-adventitia (MA) interfaces of the carotid distal wall. We called this new release as CARES 3.0 (a class of AtheroEdge™ system, a patented technology from Global Biomedical Technologies, Inc., CA, USA). CARES 3.0 is completely automated and adopts an integrated approach for carotid location in the image frame, followed by segmentation based on edge snapper and heuristic search. CARES 3.0 was benchmarked against three other techniques on a 300 image multi-institutional database. One of the techniques was user-driven. The CARES 3.0 CIMT measurement bias was -0.021 ± 0.182 mm, which was better than that of the semi automated method (-0.036 ± 0.183 mm). CARES 3.0 outperformed the other two fully automated methods. The Figure-of-Merit of CARES 3.0 was 97.4%, better than that of the semi-automated technique (95.4%).

A new methodology based on q-entropy for breast lesion classification in 3-D ultrasound images.

Classification of breast lesions is clinically most relevant for breast radiologists and pathologists for early breast cancer detection. This task is not easy due to poor ultrasound resolution and large amount of patient data size. This paper proposes a five step novel and automatic methodology for breast lesion classification in 3-D ultrasound images. The first three steps yield an accurate segmentation of the breast lesions based on the combination of (a) novel non-extensive entropy, (b) morphologic cleaning and (c) accurate region and boundary extraction in level set framework. Segmented lesions then undergo five feature extractions consisting of: area, circularity, protuberance, homogeneity, and acoustic shadow. These breast lesion features are then input to a support vector machine (SVM)-based classifier that classifies the breast lesions between malignant and benign types. SVM utilizes B-spline as a kernel in its framework. Using a data base of 250 breast ultrasound images (100 benign and 150 malignant) and utilizing the cross-validation protocol, we demonstrate system's accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value as: 95%, 97%, 94%, 92% and 98% respectively in terms of ROC curves and Az areas, better in performance than the current literature offers.

Implicit dual snakes for medical imaging.

Dual snake models are powerful techniques for boundary extraction and segmentation of 2D medical images. In these methods one contour contracts from outside the target and another one expands from inside as a balanced technique with the ability to reject local minima. Such approach was originally proposed in the context of parametric snakes. Recently, two implicit formulation for dual snakes were presented: our proposal, called the Dual-Level-Set, and the Dual-Front approach. In this paper we review these methods and offer some comparisons. We survey applications for shape recovery in 2D cell and human brain MRI images.