Ultra-low-dose chest CT in adult patients with cystic fibrosis using a third-generation dual-source CT scanner.

INTRODUCTION: Chest computed tomography (CT) examinations are performed routinely in some cystic fibrosis (CF) centers in order to evaluate lung disease progression in CF patients. Continuous CT technological advancement in theory could allows a lower radiation exposure of CF patients during chest CT examinations without an image quality reduction, and this could become increasingly important over time in order to reduce the cumulative radiation dose effects given the continuous increase of CF patients predicted median survival. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to compare objective and subjective image quality and radiation dose between low-dose chest CT examinations performed in adult CF patients using a third-generation DSCT scanner and a 64-slices single-source CT (SSCT) scanner. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between January 2016 and August 2019, 81 CF patients underwent low-dose chest CT examinations using both a 64-slices SSCT scanner (2016-2017) and a third-generation DSCT scanner (2018-2019). Objective image noise standard deviation (INSD), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), overall subjective image quality (OSIQ), subjective image noise (SIN), subjective evaluation of streaking artifacts (SA), movement artifacts (MA) and edge resolution (ER), dose-length product (DLP), volume computed tomography dose index (CTDIvol) and effective radiation dose (ERD) were compared between DSCT and SSCT examinations. DSCT examinations consisted in spiral inspiratory end expiratory acquisitions. SSCT examinations consisted in spiral inspiratory acquisitions and five axial expiratory ones. RESULTS: DSCT protocol showed statistically significant lower spiral inspiratory phase mean DLP, CTDIvol and ERD than SSCT protocol, with a 25% DLP, CTDIvol and ERD reduction. DSCT protocol showed statistically significant higher overall (inspiratory and expiratory phases) mean DLP, CTDIvol and ERD than SSCT protocol, with a 40% DLP, CTDIvol and ERD increase. Objective image quality (INSD, SNR and CNR) and SIN differences were not statistically significant, but subjective evaluation of DSCT images showed statistically significant better OSIQ and ER, as well as statistically significant lower SA and MA with respect to SSCT images. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this is the first study evaluating chest CT image quality and radiation dose in adult CF patients using a third-generation DSCT scanner, and it showed that technological advancements could be used in order to reduce radiation exposure of volumetric examinations. The spiral inspiratory dose reduction can be obtained with concomitant improvements in subjective image quality with comparable objective quality. This will probably allow a wider use of this imaging modality in order to assess bronchiectasis and will probably foster spiral expiratory acquisition for small airways disease evaluation.

[The key role of public health medical resident education for future public health challenges]. / La formazione del giovane igienista per le nuove sfide della sanità pubblica.

INTRODUCTION: The Italian Committee of medical residents in Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Public Health is a member of the Italian Society of Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Public Health with the aim of developing a network among Italian resident in public health and promoting the educational path improvement through comparisons and debates between postgraduate medical schools. In this perspective, during last years account has been taken of some essential topics concerning education of public health medical residents, which represent future health-care and public health experts. METHODS: Cross-sectional researches were conducted among Italian public health medical residents (PHMRs) through self-administered and web-based questionnaires. Each questionnaire was previously validated by pilot studies conducted during the 46th National Conference of the Italian Society of Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Public Health. RESULTS: Seventy percent of Italian PHMRs considered the actual length of Public Health postgraduate medical school excessively long, with regard to predetermined educational goals. Confirming this statement, 90% of respondents were inclined to a reduction from 5 to 4 years of postgraduate medical school length, established by Law Decree 104/2013. Seventy seven percent of surveyed PHMRs stand up for a rearrangement on a national setting of the access contest to postgraduate medical schools. Moreover 1/3 of Italian schools performed less than 75%of learning and qualifying activities specified in Ministerial Decree of August 2005. In particular, data analysis showed considerable differences among Italian postgraduate schools. Finally, in 2015 only four Italian Universities (Napoli Federico II, Palermo, Pavia, Roma Tor Vergata) provide for the Second Level Master qualify for the functions of occupational doctor. This offer makes available 60 positions against a request of over 200 future Public Health medical doctors who have shown interest in the Master. CONCLUSIONS: In Italy, after the introduction of Ministerial Decree 285/2005, the educational course of PHMRs was significantly improved. The standardization of learning and qualifying activities allowed for the first time the attendance at medical directions or Local Health Units. Nevertheless, the excessive lenght of postgradute schools and the differences about training among Italian Universities are critical and actual issue. Moreover, the remarkable interest shown by PHMRs in the Master could suggest a poor job replacement prospect for young medical specialist in Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Public Health.

Symptomatic hepatic cyst in a child: treatment with single-shot injection of tetracycline hydrochloride.

The prevalence of hepatic cysts is 0.1% to 0.5% based on autopsy studies, and 2.5% based on US examinations. Percutaneous therapies are a new alternative to surgery. They include simple percutaneous aspiration, catheter drainage alone, and catheter drainage with sclerotherapy. We present an 11-year-old boy admitted to hospital because of abdominal pain. A diagnosis of simple hepatic cyst was made, which was treated with aspiration and tetracycline hydrochloride solution (5%) injection into the cystic cavity. Complete regression was seen on US and MRI examination at 3 months, with total collapse and deflation of the cyst. The cyst regressed totally, leaving a hyperechoic linear scar on US examination at 1 year. On the basis of the clinical and imaging results obtained, percutaneous sclerotherapy of hepatic cysts can be recommended as the treatment of choice and as a valid alternative to laparoscopy in children.

Pyloric atresia: report of two cases (one associated with epidermolysis bullosa and one associated with multiple intestinal atresias).

We describe the US findings in two vomiting newborns affected by different forms of pyloric atresia, a rare congenital anomaly that includes a spectrum of lesions limited to the antro-pyloric region of the stomach and with various inheritance mechanisms and syndromic associations.

Parenteral exposure to high HIV viremia leads to virus-specific T cell priming without evidence of infection.

Previous studies on CTL responses in HIV-exposed uninfected individuals assumed that the patients were exposed to replicating HIV, but the possibility that the immune responses detected were primed by exposure to a defective virus or viral antigen could not be excluded. Epidemiological and laboratory analysis of a nosocomial outbreak of acute hepatitis B unequivocally allowed the identification of an HIV-1- and HBV-co-infected patient with high plasma levels of both viruses, as the source case of the epidemics. This clinical setting provided a natural model for testing the HIV-specific T cell response in patients exposed to blood from a patient with highly replicating HIV. Parenteral exposure to both viruses led to acute hepatitis B in five subjects without evidence of HIV-1 infection. Cryopreserved lymphocytes derived from three exposed patients were tested ex vivo in an ELISPOT assay for IFN-gamma release upon stimulation with peptides from structural and non-structural HIV proteins; one of the patients was also tested with four HLA/class I tetramers. Circulating HIV-specific CD8 cells were detected by tetramer staining and a high frequency of T cells were able to release IFN-gamma upon stimulation with HIV peptides, showing in vivo T cell priming by HIV. These results unequivocally demonstrate a HIV-specific cell-mediated immune response in the absence of infection after exposure to highly replicating HIV.