European journal of clinical investigation
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Eur. J. Clin. Invest. · May 2022
ReviewFuture of Kidney Imaging: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Kidney Disease Progression.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) which is a common cause of death has an increasing trend, but there is no established approach for predicting CKD progression yet. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies such as blood oxygenation level-dependent MRI (BOLD-MRI), diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI-MRI), diffusion-tensor MRI (DTI-MRI) and arterial spin labelling MRI (ASL-MRI) are rising methods for the assessment of kidney functions in native and transplanted kidneys as well as the estimation of CKD progression. ⋯ BOLD-MRI signal was found to be inversely correlated with annual eGFR change, and DWI/ADC (apparent diffusion coefficient map) values were shown to be correlated with annual eGFR decline. fMRI methods which are currently used for other systems can be utilized to provide more detailed information about kidney functions, and doctors should be ready to interpret kidney MRIs.
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Eur. J. Clin. Invest. · May 2022
MRI based Kidney Radiomics analysis during chronic lithium treatment.
Lithium therapy during bipolar disorder is associated with an increased risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD) that is slowly progressive and undetectable at early stages. We aimed at identifying kidney image texture features as possible imaging biomarkers of decreased measured glomerular filtration rate (mGFR) using radiomics of T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). ⋯ A renal texture index was developed among patients treated with lithium associated with a decreased mGFR. This index might be relevant in the diagnosis of lithium-induced renal toxicity.
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Eur. J. Clin. Invest. · May 2022
Effects of multimorbidity on incident COVID-19 events and its interplay with COVID-19 event status on subsequent incident myocardial infarction (MI).
With the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, there have been reports on its impact on incident myocardial infarction (MI) emanating from studies with small to modest sample sizes. We therefore examined the incidence of MI in a very large population health cohort with COVID-19 using a methodology which integrates the dynamicity of prior comorbid history. We used two approaches, i.e. main effect modelling and a machine learning (ML) methodology, accounting for the complex dynamic relationships among comorbidity and other variables. ⋯ The very large investigation conducted herein confirmed the importance of cardiometabolic and noncardiometabolic multimorbidity in increasing vulnerabilities to a higher risk of COVID-19 infections. Furthermore, the presence of COVID-19 infections increased incident MI complications both in terms of independent effects and interactions with the multimorbid profile and age.
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Eur. J. Clin. Invest. · May 2022
Reliability of lumbar multifidus ultrasound assessment during the active straight leg raise test.
Previous evidence showed altered lumbar multifidus (LM) activation in populations with chronic nonspecific low back pain (LBP). We aimed to investigate the test-retest and inter-examiner reliability of ultrasound imaging (US) for assessing LM thickness at rest and activation during the active straight leg raise test (ASLR) and the association between thickness changes with clinical outcomes. ⋯ US is a reliable method to assess the LM thickness at rest and contracted during the ASLR in patients with LBP. The measurement at 3 s after maintaining ASLR, as well as the use of the mean of three measurements, has been shown to be the most reliable method for measuring LM muscle thickness during ASLR.