Automated quantification of abnormalities associated with COVID-19 from chest CT could help clinicians evaluate the disease and assess its severity and progression. This study proposes measures of disease severity and a deep learning and deep reinforcement-based method to compute them.

There were significant differences in ADC50-300 between chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic carcinoma. Because D is not significantly different between groups, differences in ADC can be attributed mainly to differences in perfusion. The perfusion fraction f proved to be the superior DWI-derived parameter for differentiation of mass-forming pancreatitis and pancreatic carcinoma.

Using the IVIM-approach, the f value proved to be the best parameter for the differentiation between healthy pancreas and pancreatic cancer. The acquisition of several b-values strongly improved the stability of the parameter estimation thus increasing the sensitivity and specificity to 95.7% and 100% respectively. The proposed method may hold great promise for the non invasive, noncontrast-enhanced imaging of pancreas lesions and may eventually become a screening tool for pancreatic cancer.

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Focal cortical gyration anomalies can be detected at the early sulcation process stage. The process leading to abnormal gyration may evolve faster than physiologic ones and seems to be related to alterations of parenchymal layering occurring before 24 weeks' gestation. Most focal cortical gyration anomalies evolve toward what is currently considered polymicrogyria.

Diffusion-based intravoxel incoherent motion imaging has recently gained interest as a method to detect and characterize pancreatic lesions, especially as it could provide a radiation-and contrast agent-free alternative to existing diagnostic methods. However, tumor delineation on intravoxel incoherent motion-derived parameter maps is impeded by poor lesion-topancreatic duct contrast in the f-maps and poor lesion-tovessel contrast in the D-maps. The distribution of the diffusion and perfusion parameters within vessels, ducts, and tumors were extracted from a group of 42 patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Clearly separable combinations of f and D were observed, and receiver operating characteristic analysis was used to determine the optimal cutoff values for an automated segmentation of vessels and ducts to improve lesion detection and delineation on the individual intravoxel incoherent motionderived maps. Receiver operating characteristic analysis identified f 5 0.28 as the cutoff for vessels (Area under the curve (AUC) 5 0.901) versus tumor/duct and D 5 1.85 mm 2 /ms for separating duct from tumor tissue (AUC 5 0.988). These values were incorporated in an automatic segmentation algorithm and then applied to 42 patients. This yielded clearly improved tumor delineation compared to individual intravoxel incoherent motionderived maps. Furthermore, previous findings that indicated that the f value in pancreatic cancer is strongly reduced compared to healthy pancreatic tissue were reconfirmed. Magn Reson Med 66:1327-1332,

SUMMARY:Ganglionic eminence is the main transitory proliferative structure of the ventral telencephalon in human fetal brain and it contributes for at least 35% to the population of cortical interneurons; however data on the human GE anomalies are scarce. We report 5 fetal MR imaging observations with bilateral symmetric cavitations in their GE regions resembling an inverted open C shape and separating the GE itself form the deeper parenchyma. Imaging, neuropathology, and follow-up features suggested a malformative origin. All cases had in common characteristics of lissencephaly with agenesis or severe hypoplasia of corpus callosum of probable different genetic basis. From our preliminary observation, it seems that GE cavitations are part of conditions which are also accompanied by severe cerebral structure derangement.ABBREVIATIONS: CC ϭ corpus callosum; GA ϭ gestational age; GE ϭ ganglionic eminence

Hereditary aceruloplasminemia (HA) is a rare inherited disease characterized by anemia, iron overload, diabetes, and neurodegeneration. HA is caused by the homozygous mutation of the ceruloplasmin (CP) gene. We report two siblings with markedly different phenotypes carrying a novel mutation: a homozygous deletion of two nucleotides (1257-1258 TT del) causing the premature stop of the Cp protein translation (Y401X). An early diagnosis of iron overload was made in the female sibling who was subsequently treated with deferoxamine. At the age of 54, her neurologic symptoms were limited to mild akinetic signs and a history of seizures; moreover, her fasting blood glucose level never exceeded 120 mg/dL. The male sibling, who had not received any specific treatment for HA, developed severe diabetes at the age of 32 and at 48 manifested a progressively disabling neurologic disease. Possible physiopathological bases of these intrafamilial phenotypic variations are discussed.