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We investigated whether predictive clinicopathologic factors can be affected by different response criteria and how the clinical usefulness of radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy should be evaluated considering variable factors in patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC). A total of 1563 patients with DTC who underwent first RAI therapy after total or near total thyroidectomy were retrospectively enrolled from 25 hospitals. Response to therapy was evaluated with two different protocols based on combination of biochemical and imaging studies: (1) serum thyroglobulin (Tg) and neck ultrasonography (US) and (2) serum Tg, neck US, and radioiodine scan. The responses to therapy were classified into excellent and non-excellent or acceptable and non-acceptable to minimize the effect of non-specific imaging findings. We investigated which factors were associated with response to therapy depending on the follow-up protocols as well as response classifications. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify factors significantly predicting response to therapy. The proportion of patients in the excellent response group significantly decreased from 76.5 to 59.6% when radioiodine scan was added to the follow-up protocol (P

The purpose of this study was to determine the glucose metabolism at delay phase measured by pretreatment dual-time-point 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/ computed tomography (CT) provides prognostic information independent of well-known prognostic factors in patients with intrahepatic or perihilar cholangiocarcinoma (ICC or PCC). From July 2012 to December 2017, 55 patients (men 27, women 28, mean age 68 ± 11 years) with pathologically proven ICC or PCC were enrolled in this retrospective study. The dual-time-point 18F-FDG PET/CT as part of a staging workup was performed in all patients. The patient's data includes age, sex, serum CA19-9, presence of LN or distant metastasis, early SUVmax (early maximum standardized uptake value [eSUV]), delay SUVmax (delay maximum standardized uptake value [dSUV]), retention index of SUVmax (percent change of maximum standardized uptake values [ΔSUV]), neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and histopathology including pCEA, p53, Ki-67 index. The analysis of the relationship between metabolic parameters and survival was done using the Kaplan–Meier curve and Cox proportional hazards regression model. Median survival for all patients was 357 days. Median early and delay SUVmax was 5.2 (range: 2.0–21.4) and 6.5 (range 2.7–24.5), respectively. The overall survival was found to be significantly related to eSUV, dSUV, ΔSUV, age, serum CA19-9 and NLR in univariate analysis. In multivariate analysis, dSUV (P = .014, 95%CI; 1.30–10.7, HR 3.74) and ΔSUVmax (P = .037, 95%CI; 1.05–6.12, HR 2.5) were independent factors of overall survival. Kaplan–Meier curve analysis clearly showed the significant difference of overall survival between 2 groups (high eSUV, low eSUV + high ΔSUV vs low eSUV and ΔSUV, P

Multicentric Castleman's disease and Kaposi's sarcoma are more frequently observed in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients; however, 40-50% of the cases are HIV-negative. The present study reports the case of a 61-year-old man who presented with palpable masses in the axillary and right inguinal areas. The blood test results revealed increased serum erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein level, with negative serological markers, including for HIV. The patient was investigated using contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) and fluorine- 18fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET)/CT; the images revealed multiple enlarged and intensely hypermetabolic lymph nodes in the cervical, thoracic and abdominopelvic areas. Excisional biopsy and immunohistochemical analysis were performed, which confirmed the diagnosis of HIV-negative multicentric Castleman's disease coexisting with Kaposi's sarcoma. The patient received steroid therapy followed by chemotherapy. After 4 cycles of chemotherapy, the follow-up 18F-FDG PET/CT scan revealed nearly complete remission of the hypermetabolic malignant lesions of the neck, axilla and thoracoabdominal region.

Multicentric Castleman's disease and Kaposi's sarcoma are more frequently observed in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients; however, 40–50% of the cases are HIV-negative. The present study reports the case of a 61-year-old man who presented with palpable masses in the axillary and right inguinal areas. The blood test results revealed increased serum erythrocyte sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein level, with negative serological markers, including for HIV. The patient was investigated using contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) and fluorine- 18fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET)/CT; the images revealed multiple enlarged and intensely hypermetabolic lymph nodes in the cervical, thoracic and abdominopelvic areas. Excisional biopsy and immunohistochemical analysis were performed, which confirmed the diagnosis of HIV-negative multicentric Castleman's disease coexisting with Kaposi's sarcoma. The patient received steroid therapy followed by chemotherapy. After 4 cycles of chemotherapy, the follow-up 18F-FDG PET/CT scan revealed nearly complete remission of the hypermetabolic malignant lesions of the neck, axilla and thoracoabdominal region.

A 37-year-old man who presented with one year history of lower back and right buttock pain was investigated with contrast enhanced computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography which revealed a diagnosis of primary fibroblastic osteosarcoma of the lumbar vertebra. This case highlights the importance of PET/CT imaging.

Visual tracking is one of the most important problems considered in computer vision. To improve the performance of the visual tracking, a part-based approach will be a good solution. In this paper, a novel method of visual tracking algorithm named part-based mean-shift (PBMS) algorithm is presented. In the proposed PBMS, unlike the standard mean-shift (MS), the target object is divided into multiple parts and the target is tracked by tracking each individual part and combining the results. For the part-based visual tracking, the objective function in the MS is modified such that the target object is represented as a combination of the parts and iterative optimization solution is presented. Further, the proposed PBMS provides a systematic and analytic way to determine the scale of the bounding box for the target from the perspective of the objective function optimization. Simulation is conducted with several benchmark problems and the result shows that the proposed PBMS outperforms the standard MS.

Endotracheal leiomyoma is a rare benign lesion, accounting for approximately 1% of tracheal tumors, and generally occurs in the lower respiratory tract. Because its growth causes airway obstruction symptom, surgical treatment is generally suggested after detection. We report a case with leiomyoma of the cervical endotracheal space showing intense FDG uptake on F-FDG PET/CT mimicking malignancy in a 79-year-old woman with papillary thyroid carcinoma.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential usefulness of (18)F-FDG PET/CT for detecting colorectal carcinoma and adenoma in asymptomatic adults.614 subjects were enrolled in this retrospective study. They underwent both (18)F-FDG PET/CT and colonoscopy in the same day as part of a cancer-screening program. Small focal FDG accumulation along the colorectum on (18)F-FDG PET/CT images were compared with colonoscopy findings. Size of lesion was measured on colonoscopy and histology was determined by biopsy or polypectomy.In 614 (18)F-FDG PET/CT images, 27 foci of FDG uptakes were observed in the colorectal area in 25 subjects. The overall sensitivity and specificity of (18)F-FDG PET/CT were 5.6 and 96.8 %, respectively, but sensitivity to detect lesions larger than or equal to 1 cm was 25.8 %. On the ROC analysis, the optimal cut-off value for differentiating premalignant and malignant lesions from other benign conditions was 5.0 (sensitivity = 50 %, specificity = 88 %, AUC = 0.643).Colonoscopic evaluation could be recommended by presence of focal colonic FDG uptake on (18)F-FDG PET/CT, especially when SUVmax is over 5.

e15598 Background: The aim of this retrospective study was to determine whether delayed glucose metabolism assessed by dual time point F-18 FDG PET/CT provides additional prognostic information independent of established prognostic factors in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (IHCC). Methods: We reviewed retrospectively the medical records of 96 patients (men 57, women 39, mean age 66 ± 10 years) with pathologically proven IHCC. They underwent dual time point F-18 FDG PET/CT as part of a pretreatment workup from July 2012 to December 2017. For the analysis, patients were classified by age, sex, stage, serum CA19-9, early SUVmax (eSUV), delayed SUVmax (dSUV), delta SUVmax (ΔSUV, difference between early and delayed SUVmax) and histopathology (pCEA, p53, Ki-67 index). The relationship between FDG uptake and survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier with log-Rank test and Cox’s proportional-hazard regression methods. Results: Median survival for all 96 study subjects was 303 days and median SUVmax was 7.2 (range: 2.5 – 21.7). The survival was found to be significantly related to eSUV ( p < 0.0001), age ( p = 0.017), LN metastasis ( p = 0.03) and p53 index ( p = 0.04) and multivariate analysis study revealed that the patients with a higher SUVmax ( p = 0.0001, 95%CI = 1.80 to 5.89, HR = 3.26), prescence of LN metastasis ( p = 0.031), higher age ( p = 0.044) and a higher p53 index ( p = 0.007) showed worse overall survival. In addition, we carried out a subgroup analysis targeting the 55 patients with delayed SUVmax to evaluate a prognostic value of delayed image parameter. In univariate analysis, dSUV (cut-offvalue 7.3, p = 0.0006) and ΔSUV (cut-off value 3.2, p = 0.035), age ( p < 0.0001) and sCA19-9 ( p = 0.018) showed significant correlation and dSUV was an independent factor of overall survival in multivariate analysis. ( p = 0.014, 95%CI = 1.30 to 10.7, HR = 3.74) And then, we analyzed combinations of eSUV, dSUV and ΔSUV each other to evaluate additional prognostic information. The result revealed that higher dSUV ( p = 0.0001, AUC = 0.68) and ΔSUV ( p = 0.0002, AUC = 0.71) showed a poorer overall survival although the eSUV of IHCC was low. Conclusions: Higher delayed SUVmax and ΔSUVmax on pretreatment dual time point F-18 FDG PET/CT can predict poorer survival and additional information of risk stratification in patients with IHCC.

Objective The aim of this study is to investigate the prognostic value of F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (F-18 FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) in gallbladder cancer patients. Methods From June 2004 to June 2010, a total of 50 patients with gallbladder cancer who underwent diagnostic staging with F-18 FDG PET/CT following curative or palliative treatments were retrospectively evaluated. For the analysis, all patients were classified by age, sex, maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), lymph node (LN) or distant metastasis, serum level of CA19-9 and CEA, type of treatment and American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage. Results The median survival for the 50 patients was 245 days and the median SUVmax in PET/CT was 8.3 (range, 0-19.7). Patients with SUVmax

Aims: It was the aim of this paper to identify prognostic factors in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, treated by radioimmunotherapy (RIT) with radioiodinated human/murine chimeric anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody rituximab (131I-rituximab). Methods: Twenty-four patients were enrolled prospectively and were treated with unlabeled rituximab 70 mg and a therapeutic activity (median 7.3 GBq) of 131I-rituximab. Contrast-enhanced 18F-FDG PET/CT scans were performed before and after 1 month of RIT. Tumor sizes and maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) of scans were measured. Results: Four of the 24 patients survived. High SUVmax in a pretreatment scan was found to be related to poorer overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (p = 0.04 and 0.02, respectively). Furthermore, a large tumor size in a pretreatment scan was associated with poorer OS but not with progression-free survival (p < 0.01 and p = 0.07, respectively). By multivariate analyses, a high SUVmax, a large tumor size in a pretreatment scan and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma histology were significantly associated with poorer OS [p = 0.04/hazard ratio (HR) = 3.54, p < 0.01/HR = 5.52, and p = 0.02/HR = 3.38, respectively). Conclusion: SUVmax and tumor size determined by a pretreatment 18F-FDG PET/CT result as significant predictors of OS in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma treated by RIT.

PURPOSE The aim of this retrospective study was to determine whether glucose metabolism assessed by fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (F-FDG) PET/computed tomography (CT) provides prognostic information independent of established prognostic factors in patients with gastric lymphoma. PATIENTS AND METHODS We reviewed the medical records of 86 patients retrospectively (men, 42; women, 44; mean age 58±13 years) with pathologically proven gastric lymphoma (34 mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue and 52 aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma). They underwent F-FDG PET/CT as part of a pretreatment work-up from February 2004 to July 2012. For the analysis, patients were classified by age, sex, Musshoff stage, serum lactate dehydrogenase, International Prognostic Index score, extragastric spread, and visual intensity [visual assessment and maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), respectively]. The relationship between F-FDG uptake and survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method with a log-rank test and Cox's proportional-hazard regression method. RESULTS The median survival of all 86 study participants was 1117 days and the median SUV measured by PET/CT was 6.1 (range, 1.9-32.7). Patients with an SUVmax less than or equal to 5.2 survived significantly longer than patients with an SUVmax more than 5.2 (median, 1163 vs. 1004 days; P=0.003). Survival was also found to be significantly related to age (P=0.0005), histological type (P=0.004), extragastric spread (P=0.0004), International Prognostic Index score (P

Recent studies have been conducted on the relationship between fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake in F-18 FDG PET/CT and prognosis in patients with pancreatic cancer, but these studies have been carried out in small numbers of patients. The aim of this retrospective study was to determine in a large number of patients whether glucose metabolism as assessed by F-18 FDG PET/CT provides prognostic information independent of established prognostic factors in patients with pancreatic cancer.We reviewed retrospectively the medical records of 165 patients (men 105, women 60, mean age 67 ± 10 years) with a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer that had undergone F-18 FDG PET/CT as part of a pretreatment workup from January 2004 to December 2009. Subsequently, all patients underwent surgery, cyberknife, radiotherapy, and/or chemotherapy. For the analysis, patients were classified by age, demographic data, maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), size, location, serum level of CA19-9, type of treatment, and AJCC stage. The relationship between FDG uptake and survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier with log-Rank test and Cox's proportional-hazard regression methods.Median survival for all 165 study subjects was 290 days and median SUV by PET/CT was 5.8 (range: 0-25.1). Patients were allocated to high ( 4.1) and low (≤4.1) SUV groups, and median survivals of these patients were 229 days and 610 days, respectively, which were significantly different (p 0.0001). Furthermore, SUVmax was found to be significantly related to survival in each stage, i.e., there were 1267 days in stage I, 440 days in stage II, 299 days in stage III, and 143 days in stage IV (p 0.0001). The median survival was also found to be significantly related to tumor size (p = 0.001), site (p = 0.0298), serum level of CA19-9 (p = 0.0017), distant metastasis (p 0.0001), and type of treatment (p 0.0001). Multivariate analysis study revealed that the patients with a low SUV (p = 0.0298), a lower serum level of CA19-9 (p = 0.0071), a lower stage (p = 0.0017), and no distant metastasis (p 0.0001) had longer survivals. In addition, SUVmax values were found to have a similar hazard ratio of distant metastasis; it was well known predictor. Furthermore, SUVmax values showed a higher hazard ratio than that of other clinicopathologic predictors.The present study shows that SUVmax on F-18 FDG PET/CT can provide a prognostic information in patients with pancreatic cancer.

Primary cutaneous angiosarcoma is a rare vascular tumor usually affecting the whole body, and its hypermetabolic features on F-FDG PET/CT may be confused with those of infection, metastasis, or primary malignancy. This is a case report of a cutaneous angiosarcoma of the lower anterior abdomen showing increased FDG uptake on F-FDG PET/CT mimicking a cutaneous metastasis in an 84-year-old woman with cervical cancer.

A support vector machine (SVM) has been developed for two-class problems, although its application to multiclass problems is not straightforward. This paper proposes a new Lagrangian SVM (LSVM) for application to multiclass problems. The multiclass Lagrangian SVM is formulated as a single optimization problem considering all the classes together, and a training method tailored to the multiclass problem is presented. A multiclass output representation matrix is defined to simplify the optimization formulation and associated training method. The proposed method is applied to some benchmark datasets in repository, and its effectiveness is demonstrated via simulation.

In this paper, a new kernelized approach for use in a recommender system (RS) is proposed. Using a machine learning technique, the proposed method predicts the user`s preferences for unknown items and recommends items which are likely to be preferred by the user. Since the ratings of the users are generally inconsistent and noisy, a robust binary classifier called a dual margin Lagrangian support vector machine (DMLSVM) is employed to suppress the noise. The proposed method is applied to MovieLens databases, and its effectiveness is demonstrated via simulations.

Over the past few decades, research has been conducted regarding the applicability of chaotic behavior in consumer and industrial applications, including secure communication. In this paper, we develop a new particle filter termed as MAP-particle filter and apply it to a secure communication. The proposed particle filter estimates not only the chaotic state but also the secure message, thereby improving the secure communication performance. A computer simulation is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.

In this paper, a new weighted approach on Lagrangian support vector machine for imbalanced data classification problem is proposed. The weight parameters are embedded in the Lagrangian SVM formulation. The training method for weighted Lagrangian SVM is presented and its convergence is proven. The weighted Lagrangian SVM classifier is tested and compared with some other SVMs using synthetic and real data to show its effectiveness and feasibility.

In this paper, a probabilistic target vehicle tracking method is proposed for situation awareness of intelligent cruise control (ICC) vehicle. The ICC vehicle considered herein is equipped with a 24 GHz microwave radar for tracking the preceding vehicle. To overcome the severe dispersion and noise of the microwave radar, a statistical model for the radar is built and it is applied to the hybrid particle filter. The hybrid particle filter is combined with the interacting multiple models (IMM) to track the preceding vehicle and predict the driver's intention. Furthermore, the modified hybrid particle filter is proposed to cope with the missing or multiple measurements of the microwave radar. Finally, a computer simulation is conducted and the validity of the proposed method is demonstrated.

As a sensor in the active safety system of vehicles, the microwave radar (MWR) would be a good choice for the localization of the nearby targets but could be a bad choice for their classification or identification. In this paper, a target classification system using a 24GHz microwave radar sensor is proposed for the active safety system. The basic idea of this paper is that the pedestrians and the vehicles have different reflection characteristics for a microwave. A multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network is employed to classify the targets and the probabilistic fusion is conduct over time to improve the classification accuracy. Some experiments are performed to show the validity of the proposed system.

In this paper, a new filtering scheme for adaptive cruise control (ACC) system is presented. In the proposed scheme, the identification of the mode of the preceding vehicle is considered as a classification problem and it is done by a neural network classifier. The neural network classifier outputs a posterior probability of the mode of the preceding vehicle and the probability is directly used in the IMM framework. Finally, ten scenarios are made and the proposed NIMM is tested on them to show its validity.

Active safety vehicle devices are getting more attention recently. To prevent traffic accidents, the environment in front and even around the vehicle must be checked and monitored. In the present applications, mainly camera and radar based systems are used as sensing devices. Laser scanner, one of the sensing devices, has the advantage of obtaining accurate measurement of the distance and the geometric information about the objects in the field of view of the laser scanner. However. there is a problem that detecting object occluded by a foreground one is difficult. In this paper, criterions are proposed to manage this problem. Simulation is conducted by vehicle mounted the laser scanner and multiple-hypothesis algorithm tracks the candidate objects. We compare the running times as multi-hypothesis algorithm parameter varies.

Particle filters perform the nonlinear estimation and have received much attention from many engineering fields over the past decade. Unfortunately, there are some cases in which most particles are concentrated prematurely at a wrong point, thereby losing diversity and causing the estimation to fail. In this paper, genetic algorithms (GAs) are incorporated into a particle filter to overcome this drawback of the filter. By using genetic operators, the premature convergence of the particles is avoided and the search region of particles enlarged. The GA-inspired proposal distribution is proposed and the corresponding importance weight is derived to approximate the given target distribution. Finally, a computer simulation is performed to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

In this paper, we design an on-road vehicle detection system based on the combination of a camera and a LIDAR system. In the proposed system, the candidate area is selected from the LIDAR data using a grouping algorithm. Then, the selected candidate area is scanned by an SVM to find an actual vehicle. The morphological edged images are used as features in a camera. The principal components of the edged images called eigencar are employed to train the SVM. We conducted experiments to show that the on-road vehicle detection system developed in this paper demonstrates about 80% accuracy and runs with 20 scans per second on LIDAR and 10 frames per second on camera.

Objective : The purpose of this study is to examine if scolopendrid acuacupucture may be effective to the lateral epicondylitis. Methods : Using scolopendrid aquacupucture, we injected a small dose of it to the affected area and operated 2 pre and post treatment test; VAS(visual analogue scale), PPT(pressure pain threshold). Results : The scolopendrid aquacupucture treatment led to improvement in the pain and symptom of lateral epicondylitis by all efficacy measures. After scolopendrid aquacupucture treatment, there was improvement in VAS, PPT. Conclusion :This results suggest that scolopendrid aquacupucture is good method for treatment of lateral epicondylitis, so we suggest the possibility to use this new remedy for the lateral epicondylitis.

Objective : The purpose of this study is to examine if scolopendrid acuacupucture may be effective to the lateral epicondylitis. Methods : Using scolopendrid aquacupucture, we injected a small dose of it to the affected area and operated 2 pre and post treatment test; VAS(visual analogue scale), PPT(pressure pain threshold). Results : The scolopendrid aquacupucture treatment led to improvement in the pain and symptom of lateral epicondylitis by all efficacy measures. After scolopendrid aquacupucture treatment, there was improvement in VAS, PPT. Conclusion : This results suggest that scolopendrid aquacupucture is good method for treatment of lateral epicondylitis. so we suggest the possibility to use this new remedy for the lateral epicondylitis.

Primitive neuroectodermal tumor is a malignant small round cell tumor of presumed neural crest origin, usually affecting the bony structures of the nasal cavity and its clinical and radiological features may be confused with those of infection and malignancy. I report a case with primitive neuroectodermal tumor of the nasal cavity showing increased tracer uptake on 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography-computed tomography mimicking an another primary malignancy in a 17-year-old boy.

Prognosis has not been known for patients with fever of unknown origin (FUO) whose ¹⁸fluoro-deoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) positron emission tomography/computerized tomography (PET/CT) finding is non-diagnostic. A total of eight patients with FUO that underwent ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT were retrospectively identified January 2016 - June 2017 in a tertiary hospital in Korea. Of these, two patients were diagnosed with microscopic polyangitis and Kikuchi's disease and one patient was transferred to another hospital. Of five patients whose diagnoses were not confirmed, four patients received non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug and/or low dose steroid and symptoms disappeared. Our study suggests that outcome of patients with FUO whose ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT finding is non-diagnostic would be favorable.

Kikuchi disease is a rare benign lesion usually affecting the lymph nodes of the whole body, and its hypermetabolic features on 18F-FDG PET/CT may be confused with those of infection, metastasis or primary malignancy. I report a case of Kikuchi disease of the axillary lymph node (LN) showing increased FDG uptake on 18F-FDG PET/CT mimicking a metastatic lymphadenopathy (LAP) in a 40-year-old patient with right breast cancer (Fig. 1).

Plasmablastic lymphoma is a rare and aggressive variant of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma with plasmablastic features, which commonly occurs in the oral cavity of human immunodeficiency virus-positive patients. Here, we present a case of plasmablastic lymphoma involving the uterus in a 54-year-old human immunodeficiency virus-negative female patient. The torso positron emission tomography/CT scan revealed intense 18F-fludeoxyglucose uptake in a bulky uterus with multiple sites of metastatic disease including peritoneal seeding.

Uterine epithelioid angiosarcoma can have conventional imaging characteristics similar to those of other uterine tumors, such as leiomyoma, leiomyosarcomas or hemangioendothelioma. Uterine epithelioid angiosarcoma exhibiting increased fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (F-18 FDG) activity can be misdiagnosed. A 61-year-old woman who was diagnosed with uterine epithelioid angiosarcoma underwent F-18 FDG positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) as a part of the pretreatment work up for surgery. F-18 FDG PET/CT showed an intense F-18 FDG uptake in the uterus in addition to increased F-18 FDG uptake at the paraaortic and aortocaval lymph nodes. To our knowledge, this is the first case report of intense F-18 FDG uptake in uterine epithelioid angiosarcoma in Korea.

It was the aim of this paper to identify prognostic factors in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, treated by radioimmunotherapy (RIT) with radioiodinated human/murine chimeric anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody rituximab (¹³¹I-rituximab).Twenty-four patients were enrolled prospectively and were treated with unlabeled rituximab 70 mg and a therapeutic activity (median 7.3 GBq) of ¹³¹I-rituximab. Contrast-enhanced ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT scans were performed before and after 1 month of RIT. Tumor sizes and maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax) of scans were measured.Four of the 24 patients survived. High SUVmax in a pretreatment scan was found to be related to poorer overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (p = 0.04 and 0.02, respectively). Furthermore, a large tumor size in a pretreatment scan was associated with poorer OS but not with progression-free survival (p0.01 and p = 0.07, respectively). By multivariate analyses, a high SUVmax, a large tumor size in a pretreatment scan and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma histology were significantly associated with poorer OS [p = 0.04/hazard ratio (HR) = 3.54, p0.01/HR = 5.52, and p = 0.02/HR = 3.38, respectively).SUVmax and tumor size determined by a pretreatment ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT result as significant predictors of OS in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma treated by RIT.

This paper deals with simultaneous localization and mapping(SLAM) problem for a mobile robot that travels around the indoor environments. A single camera looking up the ceiling is used as the only sensor. Line features are extracted from the boundaries between the ceiling and walls and parameterized for SLAM update. Extended Kalman Filter(EKF) is used for simultaneously estimating the current robot pose and building a map with the line features. When the robot is kidnapped, Monte Carlo Localization(MCL) is used for finding the robot pose. To improve the localization performance, the resampling method is modified. The experiment is practiced in our indoor test bed and the proposed algorithms are proved by the experimental results.