Nonsurgical primary treatment of early and advanced laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma, employing radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy, is considered a standard of care in many centers throughout the world. When patients have persistent or recurrent disease after non-surgical treatment, salvage surgery is frequently the only remaining potentially curative treatment. Depending on the extent of the residual/recurrent disease, different surgical salvage options are at the surgeon’s disposal. In selected cases with limited local disease, salvage transoral laser microsurgery, transoral robotic surgery and open partial laryngectomies can be employed to achieve cure while preserving laryngeal function. For more advanced cases total laryngectomy is necessary. Identifying situations with unacceptable results from surgical salvage may guide future therapies.The diagnostic contribution of 2-D shear-wave elastography (SWE) in management of superficial lymph nodes (LNs) of any origin was evaluated in 222 patients referred for needle core biopsy. Each patient underwent conventional B-mode/Doppler ultrasound examinations (conventional ultrasound) and SWE. Quantitative SWE parameters and qualitative SWE map features were extracted. Everolimus Carcinomas were found to be significantly stiffer than benign LNs (29.5 ± 32.3 kPa vs. 6.7 ± 12.3 kPa). Lymphomas exhibited intermediate stiffness (11.4 ± 5.2 kPa). Qualitative SWE analysis provided color patterns specific to histopathology (stiff rim, nodular and undetermined patterns related to malignancy and blue pattern to benignity). Adding SWE to conventional ultrasound improved the sensitivity of LN diagnosis (from 81.1% to 92.0%) but decreased its specificity (from 73.2% to 67.6%) because of the high prevalence of lymphomas compared with carcinomas. Inter-observer agreement for quantitative SWE was good (intra-class correlation coefficient = 0.82) as was inter-observer diagnostic agreement for qualitative SWE (κ = 0.65). LN location and histology type were found to influence the reported diagnostic performance of SWE.This study was aimed at evaluating the performance of the innovative technique Smart Fetus (SF) developed to recognize the planes and obtain the basic biometric measurements of fetuses automatically. This prospective study included 1005 uncomplicated singleton pregnancies undergoing routine examinations. For every pregnancy, planes, including the transverse section of the thalami, transverse section of the abdomen and longitudinal section of the femur, were acquired, and standard biometric measurements, including biparietal diameter, head circumference, abdominal circumference and femur length, were obtained using SF and traditional ultrasound technique (TUT). The accuracy, reproducibility and time required for the analysis of SF were compared with those of TUT. In 998 of 1005 cases (99.30%), SF successfully acquired the sections and made all measurements. The agreement between the techniques was high for all measurements. The time to obtain sections and measure biometric parameters or solely measure biometric parameters was significantly shorter with SF than with TUT. No significant differences were found in SF repeated measurements obtained by two independent observers. The SF technique helped in the acquisition of reliable standard sections and biometric measurements and saved time. It might serve as a novel ultrasound scanning approach and improve workflow efficiency.Quantitative ultrasound has a great potential for the non-destructive evaluation of tissue engineered constructs, where the local attenuation and the integrated backscatter coefficient (IBC) can be used for monitoring the development of biological processes. The local determination of both parameters can be achieved using the reference phantom method (RPM). However, its accuracy can be affected when evaluating constructs of evolving sound speed, attenuation and thickness, for example, when evaluating biodegradable hydrogels developing neocartilage. To assess the feasibility of using the RPM under such dynamic conditions while employing a 50-MHz transducer, we conducted a series of experiments on 3-mm-thick acellular hydrogels laden with microspheres. The ultrasonic evaluation procedure used was validated by detecting and compensating for large attenuation variations occurring in the construct, up to 20-fold with respect to the reference phantom, with estimations errors below 1%. We found that sound speed mismatch does not affect the local attenuation estimation, but causes a strong diffraction effect by reducing the backscatter intensity. Such intensity reduction was compensated by determining the IBC percentage change (IBCΔ) as function of sound speed mismatch with respect to the reference phantom (ΔSS), with the equation IBCΔ = (0.63 ± 0.07) ΔSS + (8.54 ± 0.76) 10-3 ΔSS2. The investigated ΔSS interval was up to 120 m/s and using two different concentrations of microspheres, with estimation errors below 7% relative to the construct’s actual IBC. Finally, we found that the spectral difference method is sufficient to measure within a few millimetres in depth mismatch, and when combining with sound speed mismatch, we found negligible additional effects. These results pave the way for the use of a generic reference phantom for the evaluation of thin dynamic constructs, thus simplifying the need for using different phantoms depending on the construct’s properties.In order to meet the domestic urgent needs of evaluating the immunogenicity of vaccines and the potency testing of therapeutic antibody products against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the first Chinese national standards for SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody were established. The potency and stability of the candidate standards were determined by neutralization assay and accelerated degradation study. The stability studies showed that the standards were stable in the short-term. The collaborative study showed that the candidate standards could reduce the variations in neutralization titers between labs and thus improve comparability of neutralizing antibody measurements. Sample 22 has been approved by the Biological Product Reference Standards Sub-Committee of the National Drug Reference Standards Committee as the first Chinese National Standard for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) neutralizing antibody, with an assigned potency of 1,000 units per milliliter (U/ml). This standard will contribute to the standardized assessment of the quality and efficacy of vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19 in China.