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Background: With the remarkable improvements in ultrasound equipment, transabdominal ultrasound after oral administration of an echoic cellulose-based gastric ultrasound contrast agent (TUS-OCCA) has recently been suggested to be effective in initial screening of gastric cancer. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of TUS-OCCA for gastric cancer.Methods: Consecutive patients with gastric cancers who underwent resection in our hospital were enrolled. Before the lesion was resected, TUS-OCCA examination was performed by a skilled examiner who was blinded to the site, size, and endoscopy diagnosis of the lesion. TUS-OCCA findings were compared with those of endoscopy and pathological diagnoses as the gold standard.Results: There were a total of 288 consecutive patients enrolled in the study, including 228 with advanced gastric cancers (T2-T4 stage), 50 with early gastric cancer (26 with stage T1b and 24 with stage T1a), and 10 with high-grade intraepithelial neoplasia. TUS-OCCA had a detection rate of 100% (228/228) for advanced gastric cancers, 77% (20/26) for stage T1b, 67% (16/24) for stage T1a, and 60% (6/10) for high-grade intraepithelial neoplasia. The majority of patients with undetectable neoplasms using TUS-OCCA were obese (body mass index, 28.7-31.8 kg/m(2)). The overall accuracy of TUS-OCCA in determining the T stage of gastric cancer was 77.3% (62.5% for T1a, 70% for T1b, 71.1% for T2, 85.2% for T3, and 73.3% for T4).Conclusions: These findings indicate that TUS-OCCA achieved a high detection rate for gastric cancers and was useful in assessing the degree of gastric cancer invasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To explore whether the non-invasive method of ultrasound elastography can diagnose and grade hepatic steatosis by using a rat model system. Methods Fifty healthy male Wistar rats were divided into a model group (n =40 ) and a control group (n = 10) . The model was induced by high-fat diet (20% lard), alcohol intake (10% in drinking water), and CCl4 subcutaneous injections (40% in olive oil ; 0.2 ml/kg two times a week) . The control rats received normal diet, no alcohol, and olive oil injections. After weeks 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 of the regimen, rats from each group were randomly selected and subjected to liver ultrasound elastography analysis ( Hitachi HV900 Color Doppler instrument; 6-13 MHz linear probe frequency), first as transabdominal imaging then by fully exposed rat liver imaging, followed by pathological examination with hematoxylin-eosin staining. The imaging techniques were performed in triplicate for each rat and averaged. The imaging findings of controls (B) were compared to those of models (A) and used to calculate the strain ratio (B/A). Hepatic steatosis detected by pathology was graded as percent of fatty degeneration: normal, <5%; mild, 5%-33%; moderate, 34% -66%; severe, >66%. The correlations between B/A and pathology grades were assessed by Kruskal-Wallis and Spearman's coefficient tests. Results Ten rats died during the establishment of the hepatic steatosis model system. Of the 30 surviving model rats assessed by ultrasound and pathology, the hepatic steatosis grade was mild in 10, moderate in 12, and severe in 8; all control rats showed normal liver. The transabdominal imaging results (B/A) were significantly different between control rats (0.25±0.04) and rats with all three grades of hepatic steatosis ( vs. mild: 0.43 ± 0.05, moderate: 0.59 ± 0.17, and severe : 0.89 ± 0.21; P<0.05). The B/A was positively correlated with the pathology grade (r=0.88, P<0.001) . Conclusion Ultrasonic elastography effectively diagnosed hepatic steatosis and was able to quantitate various pathologic grades in a non-invasive manner, suggesting its potential utility for clinical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Varicocele is a major correctable cause of male infertility. Shear wave elastography (SWE) represents a valuable approach for assessing spermatogenesis in infertile men; however, its application in infertile men with varicocele remains unreported in the literature to date. The objective of this study was to investigate the correlation between testicular stiffness and spermatogenesis in individuals with varicocele., Methods: A total of 568 participants with left-side varicocele and 475 age-matched healthy controls were enrolled. The mean, left, and right testicular volumes (Volume-mean, Volume-L, and Volume-R), the mean elastic modulus of bilateral, left, and right testes (Emean, Emean-L, and Emean-R); the maximum elastic modulus of bilateral, left, and right testes (Emax, Emax-L, and Emax-R); the minimum elastic modulus of bilateral, left, and right testes (Emin, Emin-L, and Emin-R) were calculated., Results: Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for Volume-R and Emax were constructed to identify participants with sperm concentrations below 5 million/mL. The areas under the ROC curves (AUCs) were 0.801 and 0.775, respectively. Combining these 2 markers improved their diagnostic value with an AUC of 0.820 and sensitivity and specificity of 94.6% and 59.8% [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.772-0.867, P<0.01], respectively. A total of 69 participants underwent microsurgical varicocelectomy (including 42 cases with improved semen results and 27 without). The ROC curves of Emax-L and Volume-L were constructed for the differential diagnosis between the improved and unimproved groups; the AUCs were 0.723 and 0.855, respectively. Combining these 2 markers improved their diagnostic value with an AUC of 0.867 (95% CI: 0.772-0.961, P<0.01) and sensitivity and specificity of 81.5% and 81.0%, respectively., Conclusions: Our findings suggest that SWE can be used for varicocele to assess testicular parenchyma damage and Volume-L combined with Emax-L offers a more accurate method for predicting semen parameter improvement after microscopic subinguinal varicocelectomy in men with varicocele., Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://qims.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/qims-24-8/coif). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare., (2024 Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery. All rights reserved.)