1,720,971 research outputs found

    The Role of PET in the Diagnosis and Disease Activity Assessment in Large Vessel Vasculitis

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    The role of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET) in the diagnosis of large vessel vasculitis (LVV) is well established. It permits us to assess the extent and the grade of vascular involvement and to rule out the other causes in clinical scenarios characterized by less specific symptoms. The advantages of 18F-FDG PET are far less clear in monitoring disease activity over time. Studies looking for the role of 18F-FDG PET as a potential biomarker had conflicting results and whether and when to repeat it during follow-up is based on clinical experience. A comprehensive assessment, including clinical, laboratory and morphological imaging is still required to monitor patients with large-vessel vasculitis over time. The aim of this review is to present more recent data about the utility of 18 F-FDG PET in the diagnosis and follow-up of LVV

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    F-18-FDG PET/CT brown fat detection: Differences between adult and pediatric population in a 12 year experience

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    Purpose: To analyze epidemiological and anthropometric features of patients with brown adipose tissue (BAT) activation detected by fluorine 18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (F-18-FDG PET/CT).Material and methods: From 2005 to 2017, 818 F-18-FDG PET/CT studies positive for BAT detection were retrospectively included, 742 examinations performed on the adult population and 76 PET/CT on the pediatric population. A Chi-squared test was performed to compare features distribution between the adult and pediatric patients.Results: Adults showed a higher rate of BAT detection in females (79% vs. 61%, P100 mg/dL) (24% vs. 16%, P=0.02), no significant difference was found with regard to overweight patients (BMI > 25 kg/m(2)) (22% vs. 20%, P=.55). Considering females only, the adults showed a higher rate of BAT detection both in hyperglycaemic (83% vs. 42%, P<0.001) and overweight patients (80% vs. 67%, P=0.005). In both populations BAT activation happened more frequently in cold seasons; there was no significant distribution difference with regard to season of birth (P=0.2).Conclusions: Sex, glycemia and BMI play a major role in predicting BAT activation, with significant differences between adults and pediatric patients. Cold exposure is confirmed as an important predicting factor, while season of birth is not significant. (C) 2019 Sociedad Espanola de Medicina Nuclear e Imagen Molecular. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. All rights reserved

    Improvement of diagnostic accuracy of 18fluorine-fluorodeoxyglucose PET/computed tomography in detection of infective endocarditis using a 72-h low carbs protocol

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    BACKGROUND: The major challenge in diagnosing infective endocarditis using fluorine-fluorodeoxyglucose (F-FDG) PET/computed tomography (CT) is the high physiological myocardial F-FDG uptake, which may interfere with the detection of pathological uptake. Our aim was to retrospectively analyse the impact of a low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat (LCHPHF) diet starting 72 h before the examination with classic overnight fasting. METHODS: We included 92 patients (51 with LCHPHF diet 72 h before the examination and 41 with overnight fast only). Left ventricular (LV) myocardial F-FDG uptake was visually evaluated, to estimate the effect of LCHPHF on myocardial F-FDG uptake, we used a three-point visual scale: 0, negligible uptake and evaluable examination; 1, mild uptake and doubtful examination and 2, intense uptake and not evaluable examination. SUVmax and SUVmean were calculated putting a region of interest on LV myocardium at the level of the largest cardiac footprint and on the site of suspected lesion. Thus, a ratio between SUV of the suspect lesion and SUV of LV was calculated as SUV ratio. RESULTS: By visual assessment, in LCHPHF diet group 46 patients (96.1%) had score 0, 3 patients (5.9%) had score 1 and nobody had score 2. In control group, 23 patients (56.1%) had a score 2, 12 (29.3%) patients obtained a score 1 with a doubtful examination and 6 patients (14.6%) were classified with a score 0 with reportable examination. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated that an LCHPHF diet can adequately suppress the physiological myocardial uptake leading to a significant improvement in the interpretability and diagnostic accuracy of F-FDG PET/CT in infective endocarditis

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods
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