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Craniosynostoses (CRS) are caused by the premature fusion of one or more cranial sutures, with isolated nonsyndromic CRS accounting for most of the clinical manifestations. Such premature suture fusion impacts both skull and brain morphology and involves regions far beyond the immediate area of fusion. The combined use of different neuroimaging tools allows for an accurate depiction of the most prominent clinical–radiological features in nonsyndromic CRS but can also contribute to a deeper investigation of more subtle alterations in the underlying nervous tissue organization that may impact normal brain development. This review paper aims to provide a comprehensive framework for a better understanding of the present and future potential applications of neuroimaging techniques for evaluating nonsyndromic CRS, highlighting strategies for optimizing their use in clinical practice and offering an overview of the most relevant technological advancements in terms of diagnostic performance, radiation exposure, and cost-effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Several methods for assessing anastomotic integrity have been proposed, but the best is yet to be defined. The aim of this study was to compare the different methods to assess the integrity of colorectal anastomosis prior to ileostomy reversal. Method: A retrospective cohort analysis on patients between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2020 with a defunctioning stoma for middle and low rectal anterior resection was performed. A propensity score matching comparison between patients who underwent proctoscopy alone and patients who underwent proctoscopy plus any other preoperative method to assess the integrity of colorectal anastomosis prior to ileostomy reversal (transanal water‐soluble contrast enema via conventional radiology, transanal water‐soluble contrast enema via CT, and magnetic resonance) was performed. Results: The analysis involved 1045 patients from 26 Italian referral colorectal centres. The comparison between proctoscopy alone versus proctoscopy plus any other preoperative tool showed no significant differences in terms of stenoses (p = 0.217) or leakages (p = 0.103) prior to ileostomy reversal, as well as no differences in terms of misdiagnosed stenoses (p = 0.302) or leakages (p = 0.509). Interestingly, in the group that underwent proctoscopy and transanal water‐soluble contrast enema the comparison between the two procedures demonstrated no significant differences in detecting stenoses (2 vs. 0, p = 0.98), while there was a significant difference in detecting leakages in favour of transanal water‐soluble contrast enema via CT (3 vs. 12, p = 0.03). Conclusions: We can confirm that proctoscopy alone should be considered sufficient prior to ileostomy reversal. However, in cases in which the results of proctoscopy are not completely clear or the surgeon remains suspicious of an anastomotic leakage, transanal water‐soluble contrast enema via CT could guarantee its detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Brain parenchyma (BP) and intracranial cerebrospinal fluid (iCSF) volumes measured by fully automated segmentation of clinical brain MRI studies may be useful for the diagnosis and follow‐up of pediatric hydrocephalus. However, previously published segmentation techniques either rely on dedicated sequences, not routinely used in clinical practice, or on spatial normalization, which has limited accuracy when severe brain distortions, such as in hydrocephalic patients, are present. Purpose: We developed a fully automated method to measure BP and iCSF volumes from clinical brain MRI studies of pediatric hydrocephalus patients, exploiting the complementary information contained in T2‐ and T1‐weighted images commonly used in clinical practice. Methods: The proposed procedure, following skull‐stripping of the combined volumes, performed using a multiparametric method to obtain a reliable definition of the inner skull profile, maximizes the CSF‐to‐parenchyma contrast by dividing the T2w‐ by the T1w‐ volume after full‐scale dynamic rescaling, thus allowing separation of iCSF and BP through a simple thresholding routine. Results: Validation against manual tracing on 23 studies (four controls and 19 hydrocephalic patients) showed excellent concordance (ICC > 0.98) and spatial overlap (Dice coefficients ranging from 77.2% for iCSF to 96.8% for intracranial volume). Accuracy was comparable to the intra‐operator reproducibility of manual segmentation, as measured in 14 studies processed twice by the same experienced neuroradiologist. Results of the application of the algorithm to a dataset of 63 controls and 57 hydrocephalic patients (19 with parenchymal damage), measuring volumes' changes with normal development and in hydrocephalic patients, are also reported for demonstration purposes. Conclusions: The proposed approach allows fully automated segmentation of BP and iCSF in clinical studies, also in severely distorted brains, enabling to assess age‐ and disease‐related changes in intracranial tissue volume with an accuracy comparable to expert manual segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Although multiple sclerosis (MS) can be conceptualized as a network disorder, brain network analyses typically require advanced MRI sequences not commonly acquired in clinical practice. Using conventional MRI, we assessed cross-sectional and longitudinal structural disconnection and morphometric similarity networks in people with MS (pwMS), along with their relationship with clinical disability., Methods: In this longitudinal monocentric study, 3T structural MRI of pwMS and healthy controls (HC) was retrospectively analyzed. Physical and cognitive disabilities were assessed with the expanded disability status scale (EDSS) and the symbol digit modalities test (SDMT), respectively. Demyelinating lesions were automatically segmented, and the corresponding masks were used to assess pairwise structural disconnection between atlas-defined brain regions based on normative tractography data. Using the Morphometric Inverse Divergence method, we computed morphometric similarity between cortical regions based on FreeSurfer surface reconstruction. Using network-based statistics (NBS) and its extension NBS-predict, we tested whether subject-level connectomes were associated with disease status, progression, clinical disability, and long-term confirmed disability progression (CDP), independently from global lesion burden and atrophy., Results: We studied 461 pwMS (age = 37.2 ± 10.6 years, F/M = 324/137), corresponding to 1,235 visits (mean follow-up time = 1.9 ± 2.0 years, range = 0.1-13.3 years), and 55 HC (age = 42.4 ± 15.7 years; F/M = 25/30). Long-term clinical follow-up was available for 285 pwMS (mean follow-up time = 12.4 ± 2.8 years), 127 of whom (44.6%) exhibited CDP. At baseline, structural disconnection in pwMS was mostly centered around the thalami and cortical sensory and association hubs, while morphometric similarity was extensively disrupted ( p FWE < 0.01). EDSS was related to frontothalamic disconnection ( p FWE < 0.01) and disrupted morphometric similarity around the left perisylvian cortex ( p FWE = 0.02), while SDMT was associated with cortico-subcortical disconnection in the left hemisphere ( p FWE < 0.01). Longitudinally, both structural disconnection and morphometric similarity disruption significantly progressed ( p FWE = 0.04 and p FWE < 0.01), correlating with EDSS increase (ρ = 0.07, p = 0.02 and ρ = 0.11, p < 0.001), while baseline disconnection predicted long-term CDP (accuracy = 59% [58-60], p = 0.03)., Discussion: Structural disconnection and morphometric similarity networks, as assessed through conventional MRI, are sensitive to MS-related brain damage and its progression. They explain disease-related clinical disability and predict its long-term evolution independently from global lesion burden and atrophy, potentially adding to established MRI measures as network-based biomarkers of disease severity and progression.