Abstract. The accurate measurement of 3D cardiac function is an important task in the analysis of cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) images. However, short-axis image acquisitions with thick slices are commonly used in clinical practice due to constraints of acquisition time, signal-tonoise ratio and patient compliance. In this situation, the estimation of a high-resolution image can provide an approximation of the underlaying 3D measurements. In this paper, we develop a novel algorithm for the estimation of high-resolution cardiac MR images from single short-axis cardiac MR image stacks. First, we propose to use a novel approximate global search approach to find patch correspondence between the shortaxis MR image and a set of atlases. Then, we propose an innovative super-resolution model which does not require explicit motion estimation. Finally, we build an expectation-maximization framework to optimize the model. We validate the proposed approach using images from 19 subjects with 200 atlases and show that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms conventional interpolation such as linear or B-spline interpolation. In addition, we show that the super-resolved images can be used for the reproducible estimation of 3D cardiac functional indices.
Label propagation has been shown to be effective in many automatic segmentation applications. However, its reliance on accurate image alignment means that segmentation results can be affected by any registration errors which occur. Patch-based methods relax this dependence by avoiding explicit one-to-one correspondence assumptions between images but are still limited by the search window size. Too small, and it does not account for enough registration error; too big, and it becomes more likely to select incorrect patches of similar appearance for label fusion. This paper presents a novel patch-based label propagation approach which uses relative geodesic distances to define patient-specific coordinate systems as spatial context to overcome this problem. The approach is evaluated on multi-organ segmentation of 20 cardiac MR images and 100 abdominal CT images, demonstrating competitive results.
Clinicians must be aware of atypical presentations of common conditions. Appendiceal perforation with peritonitis and sepsis presenting with cholestatic jaundice is an important example, given the prevalence of the condition and the mortality associated with delayed diagnosis. The authors describe a case seen at their hospital.
Summary We investigated the deterioration in plasticity of the multi‐use Portex Tracheal Guide (‘bougie’) with repeated sterilisation. Six bougies were prepared by washing them between 0 and 100 times (in accordance with the manufacturer’s guidelines). Two tests were employed: a bench test in which rapid serial photographs were taken of the bougies uncoiling from a preformed curve; and a manikin‐based test in which the six bougies were used in a simulated difficult airway. The bench test demonstrated a progressive deterioration in plasticity with repeated washing. However, the manikin‐based test showed no significant difference between bougies in the incidence of oesophageal placement (p = 0.74). Time to placement differed significantly only between the two most‐washed bougies but was broadly similar. We suggest therefore that the manufacturer’s limit of five washings may be unnecessarily cautious. You can respond to this article at http://www.anaesthesiacorrespondence.com
We would like to report the successful use of a virtual revision group in preparation for the Structured Oral Examination (SOE)/Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) component of the Fellowship of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine (FFICM) Final. Although other reports of ''virtual study groups'' exist, 1,2 we believe this is the first report of their use in Intensive Care Medicine (ICM) revision and may be of interest to your readership. Since recognition by the General Medical Council in 2009 as a specialty in its own right, ICM has only recently developed a dedicated postgraduate exam: the FFICM. Experience in revising for the exam is therefore limited in comparison to other acute specialties such as Anaesthesia and Acute Medicine. To compound this, trainees are widely geographically distributed, limiting the opportunities to revise the interactive components face-to-face. To tackle this problem, the authors formed a ''virtual study group'' which met twice a week online, using preexisting computers and fibreoptic broadband connections (Virgin Wireless Superfast Broadband, 50 Mb), freely available proprietary software packages (Skype TM and FaceTime Õ) and online resources. Times and session durations were agreed in advance and pre-reading swapped. This method was particularly convenient given the large number of online resources relating to the interpretation of electrocardiograms and radiology both of which are expected to feature in future examinations. 3 Questions were pre-prepared by each party, and past papers, questions and hot topics were shared by freely available ''cloud'' resources (www.dropbox.com Õ). During viva sessions, transmission speeds allowed effective conditions to be reconstructed with rapid-fire questioning and discussion of poorly understood material in real-time. Virtual training groups have considerable benefits over conventional study groups in travel time, costs
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