Decidual stromal cells (DSC) are the main cellular component of the human decidua, but thus far their ascription to a given cell lineage is uncertain. In previous studies, these cells have been isolated and maintained in culture, and their antigen phenotype has been analysed to determine their affiliation. However, the presence in the culture medium of high proportions of fetal calf serum (FCS)...

OBJECTIVE To develop and validate a prognostic risk index of cardiovascular mortality after cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT). DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING District general hospital. PATIENTS 148 patients with heart failure (mean age 66.7 (SD 10.4) years), New York Heart Association class III or IV, LVEF <35%) who underwent CRT. INTERVENTIONS CRT device implantation. ...

BACKGROUND The present study aimed to define the optimal number of atlases for automatic multi-atlas-based brachial plexus (BP) segmentation and to compare Simultaneous Truth and Performance Level Estimation (STAPLE) label fusion with Patch label fusion using the ADMIRE® software. The accuracy of the autosegmentations was measured by comparing all of the generated autosegmentations with the ana...

BACKGROUND Delayed sternal closure (DSC) after cardiac surgery is a therapeutic option in the treatment of the severely impaired heart in pediatric cardiac surgery. The results with the technique of DSC over a 4-year period are examined with regard to mortality and morbidity. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed records of 38 patients who had undergone DSC among 1100 congenital cardiac operati...

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES To assess if preradiation and early follow-up measurements of relative regional cerebral blood flow (rrCBF) can predict treatment outcome in patients with cerebral metastases and to evaluate rrCBF changes in tumor and normal tissue after stereotactic radiosurgery using arterial spin-labeling (ASL) and first-pass dynamic susceptibility-weighted contrast-enhanced (DSC) pe...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to evaluate the results of spinal cord protection based on selective reconstruction of the segmental arteries. METHODS Twenty-one patients who underwent repair of aneurysms (nine descending thoracic and 12 thoracoabdominal: three type I, six type II, and three type III) were analyzed. Ten patients had postdissection aneurysms. Operative techniques consiste...

This paper deals with the application of distributed source coding (DSC) theory to remote sensing image processing systems. We first provide a brief overview of DSC of correlated information sources. We discuss several possible applications of DSC in a remote sensing system, aimed at improving the performance of on-board, on-the-ground and hybrid lossless image compression systems. We then focu...

Background: Alterations in striatal dopamine neurotransmission are central to the emergence of psychotic symptoms and to the mechanism of action of antipsychotics. Although the functional integrity of the presynaptic system can be assessed by measuring striatal dopamine synthesis capacity (DSC), no quantitative meta-analysis is available. Methods: Eleven striatal (caudate and putamen) [C/F]DOPA...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Histopathologic evaluation remains the reference standard for diagnosis of glioma and classification of histologic subtypes, but is challenged by subjective criteria, tissue sampling error, and lack of specific tumor markers. Anatomic imaging is essential for surgical planning of gliomas but is limited by its nonspecificity and its inability to depict beyond morphologic a...