AIM Primary aim was to validate the percentage of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas (ICC) which have a contrast vascular pattern at contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) at risk of misdiagnosis with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and, secondary aim, to verify if any characteristics in the CEUS pattern helps to identify ICC. METHODS All ICC on cirrhosis seen in three Italian centres (Bologna, Mil...

Located within the tunica muscularis of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract are networks of cells known as interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC). ICC are critical for important basic functions of GI motility such as generation and propagation of slow-wave pacemaker activity and reception of regulatory inputs from the enteric nervous system. We have developed a novel procedure to identify and isolate in...

The inferior colliculus central nucleus (ICC) has potential as a new site for an auditory prosthesis [i.e., auditory midbrain implant (AMI)] for deaf patients who cannot benefit from cochlear implants (CIs). We have previously shown that ICC stimulation achieves lower thresholds, greater dynamic ranges, and more localized, frequency-specific primary auditory cortex (A1) activation than CI stimu...

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) constitutes the second-most common primary hepatic malignancy. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in the pathogenesis of ICC. However, the clinical significance of miR-21 levels in ICC remains unclear. Here, we investigated the role of miR-21 in ICC and found that its expression was significantly upregulated in serum of ICC patients. Serum miR-21 level...

Metabolomics is a promising tool for discovery of novel biomarkers of chronic disease risk in prospective epidemiologic studies. We investigated the between- and within-person variation of the concentrations of 163 serum metabolites over a period of 4 months to evaluate the metabolite reliability expressed by the intraclass-correlation coefficient (ICC: the ratio of between-person variance and ...

Recently an essential role of interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) within myenteric plexus (ICC-MY) was suggested in ascending contraction and descending relaxation in the mouse ileum. The role of ICC in these neural reflexes was examined in the distal colonic segments prepared from the wild type and c-kit mutant, W/W(V) mice, in the present study. Localized distension of the segments from the wil...

BACKGROUND Diaphragmatic evaluation is crucial in clinical practice, and no studies have reported the intra- and interobserver reproducibilities of the radiographic method to evaluate diaphragmatic mobility. OBJECTIVE To analyze the reliability of radiographic measurement as a method for assessing the mobility of the left and right hemidiaphragms. METHOD Forty-two patients, who were waiting...

The ICC color device profile format promises to become the preferred method by which information about a color device will be communicated to a color management system. This paper is an ICC profile tutorial which focuses on what it takes to construct a profile compatible with the ICC specification which can be used in a color management system that recognizes these profiles. The ICC specificati...