Objective To evaluate the urine cytology silver staining combined with ultrasonography（USG）in the detection of bladder transitional cell carcinoma （TCC） recurrence after transurethral resection of bladder tumor（TURBT）in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Methods Cystoscopy was used as “gold standard”. Urine cytology combined with USG or cystoscopy was measured separately and blindly. AgNORs protein stained by silver were used in cytology with Kappa of inter-observers 0.81. For the USG, the patients were scanned with trans-rectal probe with Kappa of inter-observers 0.76. The results of urine cytology combined with USG （Positive when urine cytology and/or USG positive. Negative when both urine cytology and USG negative） were compared with “gold standard”. Results The 148 consecutive superficial TCC patients with TURBT one year previously were included in this study. Fifty seven recurrenced cases were detected. Recurrence rate was 38.51%. The sensitivity and specificity of urine cytology silver stain were 89.47% （95% CI 0.82 to 0.98） and 87.91% （95% CI 0.81 to 0.95）. Area under ROC curve was 82.22%. The sensitivity and specificity of USG were 57.90% （95% CI 0.45 to 0.71 ） and 90. 11% （ 95% CI 0.84 to 0.96）. Area under ROC curve was 73.13% . The sensitivity was improved to 94. 74% （95% CI 0.89 to 1.00） when cytology combined with USG. But specificity decreased to 84. 62% （95% CI 0.77 to 0.92 ）. Area under ROC curve was improved to 98.28%. Conclusions Urine cytology silver stain combined with USG improves the high sensitivity for follow-up TCC patients after TURBT. The non-invasive protocol is suggested.
Objective To investigate the significance of urinary trypsinogen-2 dipstick test and the ratio of urinary amylase to urinary creatinine for the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis(AP).Methods A total of 57 consecutive patients who were suspected as AP presenting with abdominal pain at the emergency department experienced the test of serum and urinary amylase, urinary creatinine assay, urinary trypsinogen-2 dipstick and ultrasonography. Results There were 18 patients diagnosed as acute pancreatitis, the serum amylase assay had a sensitivity of 88.9 percent (cutoff value, 300 U per liter) and a specificity of 87.2 percent, the sensitivity and specificity of the urinary amylase assay and the ratio of urinary amylase to urinary creatinine were 88.9 (cutoff value, 2000 U per liter), 94.4 (cutoff value, 120 U per mmol Cr), 84.6 and 89.7 percent, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of the urinary trypsinogen-2 test strip were 94.4 and 92.3 percent. The sensitivity of the ultrasonography were 88.9 percent. Conclusion Urinary trypsinogen-2 dipstick test is a good index for the diagnosis of AP. The ratio of urinary amylase to urinary creatinine is also a useful index and may be better than urinary amylase for the diagnosis of AP.
B-type ultrasound images have important applications in medical diagnosis. However, the widely spread intensity inhomogeneity, low-scale contrast, constructed defect, noise and blurred edges all make it difficult to implement automatic segmentation of lesion in the images. Based on region level set method, a subordinate degree region level set model was proposed, in which subordinate degree probability of each pixel was defined to reflect the pixel subjection grade to target and background respectively. Pixels were classified to either target or background by calculation of their subordinate degree probabilities, and edge contour was obtained by region level set iterations. In this paper, lesion segmentation is regarded as local segmentation of specific area, and the calculation is restrained to the local sphere abide by the contour, which greatly reduce the calculation complexity. Experiments on B-type ultrasound images showed improved results of the proposed method compared to those of some popular level set methods.
