The advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning will shorten image acquisition times and image analyses, making the technique more competitive against other imaging technologies.Methyltransferases are a superfamily of enzymes that transfer methyl groups to proteins, nucleic acids, and small molecules. Traditionally, these enzymes have been shown to carry out a specific modification (mono-, di-, or trimethylation) on a single, or limited number of, amino acid(s). The largest subgroup of this family, protein methyltransferases, target arginine and lysine side chains of histone molecules to regulate gene expression. Although there is a large number of functional studies that have been performed on individual methyltransferases describing their methylation targets and effects on biological processes, no analyses exist describing the spatial distribution across tissues or their differential expression in the diseased heart. For this review, we performed tissue profiling in protein databases of 199 confirmed or putative methyltransferases to demonstrate the unique tissue-specific expression of these individual proteins. In addition, we examined transcript data sets from human heart failure patients and murine models of heart disease to identify 40 methyltransferases in humans and 15 in mice, which are differentially regulated in the heart, although many have never been functionally interrogated. Lastly, we focused our analysis on the largest subgroup, that of protein methyltransferases, and present a newly emerging phenomenon in which 16 of these enzymes have been shown to play dual roles in regulating transcription by maintaining the ability to both activate and repress transcription through methyltransferase-dependent or -independent mechanisms. Overall, this review highlights a novel paradigm shift in our understanding of the function of histone methyltransferases and correlates their expression in heart disease.Notwithstanding that 100 mSv is not a threshold for radiation effects, cumulative effective dose (CED) for patients of ≥100 mSv derived from recurrent imaging procedures with ionising radiation has been recently the topic of several publications. The International Commission on Radiological Protection has alerted on the problems to use effective dose for risk estimation in individual patients but has accepted to use this quantity for comparison the relative radiation risks between different imaging modalities. A new International Commission on Radiological Protection document on the use of effective dose (including medicine), is in preparation. Recently published data on the number of patients with CED ≥100 mSv ranged from 0.6 to 3.4% in CT and around 4% in interventional radiology. The challenges to manage the existing situation are summarised. The main aspects identified are 1) New technology with dose reduction techniques. 2) Refinements in the application of the justification and optimisation for these groups of patients. 3) Patient dose management systems with alerts on the cumulative high doses. 4) Education on the proper use of cumulative effective dose for referrers and practitioners including information for patients. 5) Future research programmes in radiation biology and epidemiology may profit the patient dose data from the groups with high cumulative dose values.

To investigate the ability of radiomic signatures based on MRI to evaluate the response and efficiency of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for treating breast cancers.

152 patients were included in this study at our institution between March 2017 and September 2019. All patients with breast cancer underwent a preoperative breast MRI and the Miller-Payne grading system was applied to evaluate response to NAC. Quantitative parameters were compared between patients with sensitive and insensitive responses to NAC and between those with pathological complete responses (pCR) and non-pCR. Four radiomic signatures were built based on T2W imaging, diffusion-weighted imaging, dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging and their combination, and radiomics scores (Rad-score) were calculated. The combination of the clinical factors and Rad-scores created a nomogram model. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to assess the association between MRI features and independent clinical risk factors.

20 features and 18 features were selected to build the radiomic signature for evaluating sensitivity and the possibility of pCR, respectively. TH1760 in vivo The combined radiomic signature and nomogram model showed a similar discrimination in the training (AUC 0.91, 0.92, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.85-0.96, 0.86-0.98) and validation (AUC 0.93, 0.91, 95% CI, 0.86-1.00, 0.82-1.00) sets. The clinical factor model exhibited reduced performance (AUC 0.74, 0.64, 95% CI, 0.64-0.84, 0.46-0.82) in terms of NAC sensitivity and pCR.

The combined radiomic signature and nomogram model exhibited potential predictive power for predicting effective NAC treatment which can aid in the prognosis and guidance of treatment regimens.

Identifying a means of assessing the efficacy of NAC before surgery can guide follow-up treatment and avoid chemotherapy-induced toxicity.

Identifying a means of assessing the efficacy of NAC before surgery can guide follow-up treatment and avoid chemotherapy-induced toxicity.Peripheral arterial chronic total occlusions (CTOs) usually have calcified caps at either ends. When attempting endovascular recanalization, these calcified CTO caps may prevent the interventionist in crossing the lesion with conventional catheter and guidewire techniques. Using specialized CTO devices or re-entry devices can help crossing the CTO, but such devices are usually expensive, not always readily available and require specialist training prior to usage.”Sharp recanalization” is an alternative method of crossing the CTOs. If it is not possible to cross the CTO with conventional catheter and guidewire technique, one can take out the floppy end of the guidewire and use the stiff or the “sharp” end of the guidewire to break the hard CTO cap. Once the CTO cap is broken, the stiff end is replaced by the floppy end of the guidewire again to proceed with balloon angioplasty and/or stenting.In order to safely use the sharp recanalization technique while minimizing the risk of perforation, sharp recanalization should only be attempted once conventional methods have failed.