These authors contributed equally to this work. AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS The project was conceived and the experiments were planned by E.K. and B.W. We would like to note that Y.A. and K.E.B. had a comparable contribution to this study. The review of phenotypes and the sample collection were performed by B

The combination of DWI and DCE-MRI has the potential to increase the specificity of breast MRI.

Purpose: To evaluate the contribution of MRI to ultrasound (US) in the diagnosis of fetal anomalies. Materials and Methods:After informed consent and institutional review board approval, concomitant US and MR imaging were performed for 184 fetuses with suspected anomalies in university hospital. Postnatal final diagnoses were obtained for 183 anomalies in 151 fetuses either by radiological examination, surgery, autopsy, or inspection. The prenatal US and MR diagnoses were compared with respect to postnatal diagnoses. Sign test was used to determine the statistical significance.Results: Both ultrasound and MR imaging correctly diagnosed 93 (50%) cases and failed in 12 (7%) cases. Ultrasound was superior in 7 (4%) cases. MR imaging was superior in 71 (39%) cases (P < 0.001). MR contributed to the prenatal diagnosis by the confirmation of the suspected US diagnosis in 13%, by demonstration of additional findings in 31% and by changing the diagnosis in 56% of the cases. The contribution rates were 55% for the central nervous system (CNS) (P < 0.001), 44% for thorax (P ¼ 0.016), 38% for gastrointestinal system (GIS) (P ¼ 0.031) and 29% for genitourinary system (GUS) (P ¼ 0.003) anomalies. In facial, cardiac and extremity-skeletal system anomalies, there was not a significant contribution of MR imaging over US.Conclusion: MR imaging can be used as an adjunct to US in the prenatal diagnosis of fetal anomalies of not only the CNS but also the non-CNS origin especially those involving the GIS, GUS and thorax. ULTRASOUND (US) IS the standard and primary modality used for the imaging of the fetus. It is widely available, easy to apply, cost-effective, safe for the fetus and allows real-time imaging. However, it has some limitations. Especially in case of oligohydramnios, large maternal body habitus and inappropriate fetal position, its effectiveness reduces. Also in the evaluation of some body parts and complex pathologies, the results of US might be unclear (1,2). In such cases, MR imaging is being increasingly used as a complementary imaging modality.Magnetic resonance imaging has the potential to improve diagnostic accuracy of the prenatal imaging and facilitate the pregnancy management (3-5). It offers a high spatial, temporal, and contrast resolution, which makes the detailed study of fetal pathologies possible. To date, it has not been shown that MR imaging has any adverse effects on the fetal growth or development (2,6).Multiple studies have up to now been published to compare the effectiveness of the prenatal US and MR imaging. These studies showed that MR imaging provides additional information to US in 36% to 57% of the cases (3,4,7,8). Although this effect has been well-established for CNS anomalies, it has not been well-documented for non-CNS anomalies. Additionally, there were some important limitations of these previous studies. In most of these studies, the comparison of the imaging methods had been made without postnatal correlation and MR results had been accepted as the gold-standard. Secondarily, in most...

Antibodies to citrullinated proteins have been described in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and these appear to be the most speciWc markers of the disease. Our objective was to determine the frequency of antibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptides (CCPs) in patients with RA and the association of anti-CCP antibodies with disease activity, radiological erosions and HLA DR genotype. Forty patients with RA and 38 patients with Wbromyalgia were included in this study. Serum samples were collected from both patient groups with RA and Wbromyalgia. Anti-CCP was measured by the corresponding enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Additionally, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP), rheumatoid factor (RF), disease activity score (DAS), visual analog scala (VAS), HLA genotype and radiographic information were determined in patients with RA. The rate of sensitivity and speciWcity of anti-CCP reactivity for the diagnosis RA were measured (sensitivity 50%, speciWcity100%). There is no signiWcant diVerence between anti-CCP (+) and anti-CCP (¡) RA patients for DAS28, VAS, ESR, CRP, disease duration, HLA genotype, and radiological assessment of hand. However, there was a signiWcant diVerence between anti-CCP (+) and anti-CCP (¡) RA patients for RF and the radiological assessment of left and right wrists (respectively, P < 0.05, P = 0.04, P = 0.01). There was no signiWcant correlation between anti-CCP antibody and ESR, CRP, VAS, DAS 28 or radiological assessment. A small but signiWcant correlation was found between RF and anti-CCP antibody (P = 0.02, r = 0.35).

Both ipsilateral increased vascularity and the adjacent vessel sign were found to be associated with breast cancer in a significant percentage of patients. The adjacent vessel sign is more practical and generally applicable. There is a borderline significance in favor of the higher accuracy of the adjacent vessel sign in comparison with ipsilateral increased vascularity (p = 0.043).