CT predictors of outcomes in patients with connective tissue disease and progressive lung fibrosis

Mentors without Borders: Bridging global gaps in medical and radiological education

Pursuing medical careers like radiology is challenging even for those with high levels of commitment, discipline, and resilience. Many rely on the guidance and support from mentors whose experiences serve as the roadmap for new generations. Unfortunately, finding a mentor can be difficult in certain parts of the world or when physicians decide to live and practice medicine outside their country of origin. Within the United States, medical education in the United States is very competitive given the high demand of highly qualified aspirants and the lack of enough training positions to accept them all. Having good mentorship not only can help students enhance the skills required to succeed within their fields of interest during the residency and fellowship application processes, but it can also provide counseling as they navigate training and, ultimately, transition to the workplace. "Mentors without Borders" is a program founded by a radiologist to provide free mentorship to those interested in pursuing medical education and training to pursue radiology and other medical careers in and out of the United States. Its primary focus is on strengthening skills needed for academic writing and publication of scientific articles in radiology. This initiative has already benefited several students and physicians from all over the world and is aiming to become a fully structured program with a larger outreach.

Use of a radiology tool for the diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this paper was to perform an exploratory reader study to assess the utility of a web-based application in assisting non-chest radiologist in correctly diagnosing the radiographic pattern of pulmonary fibrosis.

METHODS

Three non-chest radiologists with 5 to 20 years of experience individually reviewed 3 rounds of randomly chosen chest CT scans (round 1: 100 scans, round 2: 50 scans, round 3: 25 scans) from a list of patients with established diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis. In round 1, radiologists were asked to directly record their diagnosis for the pattern of fibrosis. In round 2 and 3 they were asked to review for features provided in a web-based application and provide diagnosis based on the most likely predicted diagnosis from the application. There was an approximate 1-month interval and relevant tutorials were provided between each round. Diagnosis accuracy is reported by readers at each round.

RESULTS

The overall accuracy increased from 63 % (n = 188/299) in round 1 to 74 % in round 3 (n = 52/70) (p = 0.0265). Difficulty in recognition of mosaic attenuation and homogeneous has led to misdiagnosis. Refining the definition for feature homogeneous increased the diagnosis accuracy of NSIP from 42 % (n = 20/48) in round 2 to 65 % (n = 24/37) in round 3(p = 0.0179). The Fleiss Kappa across readers varied from Round 1 to Round 3 with values 0.36 to 0.42.

CONCLUSIONS

Using the web-based application with refined definition for feature homogeneous helps to improve the non-subspecialty radiologist's accuracy in diagnosing different types of fibrosis.

Multidisciplinary-derived clinical score for accurate prediction of long-term mortality in fibrotic lung disease patients

BACKGROUND

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) stands out as one of the most aggressive forms of interstitial lung diseases (ILDs), currently without a definitive cure. Multidisciplinary discussion (MDD) is now considered a cornerstone in diagnosing and differentiating ILD subtypes. The Gender-Age-Physiology (GAP) score, developed to assess IPF prognosis based on sex, age, forced vital capacity, and diffusion capacity for carbon monoxide (DLCO), is limited in not considering dyspnea and functional impairment during the walking test. We proposed a MDD-based clinical score for mortality prediction among those patients.

METHODS

From December 2018 to December 2019, we enrolled ILD patients with IPF and non-IPF and followed-up them till December 2020. Based on DLCO, modified Medical Research Council (mMRC) Dyspnea Scale, and six-minute walking test (6MWT) distance, a functional score was developed for mortality prediction.

RESULTS

We enrolled 104 ILD patients, 12 (11.5%) died by the one-year follow-up. In receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, DLCO (% predicted) was the most accurate variable predicting one-year mortality with an area under curve (AUC) of 0.88 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.80-0.94), followed by mMRC Dyspnea Score (AUC = 0.82 [95% CI = 0.73-0.89]), 6MWT distance (AUC = 0.80 [95% CI = 0.71-0.88]), and GAP score (AUC = 0.77 [95% CI = 0.67-0.84]). Only the GAP score (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.55, 95% CI = 1.03-2.34, p = 0.0.37) and functional score (HR = 3.45, 95% CI = 1.11-10.73, p = 0.032) were significantly associated with one-year mortality in multivariable analysis.

CONCLUSION

The clinical score composite of DLCO, mMRC Dyspnea Scale, and 6MWT distance could provide an accurate prediction for long-term mortality in ILD patients, laying out a helpful tool for managing and following these patients.

Evaluation of CT features for differentiating consolidation pattern of pulmonary MALT lymphoma from pneumonic-type lung adenocarcinoma

Purpose

In clinical practice, the consolidation pattern of pulmonary mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (C-MALT) was often misdiagnosed as pneumonic-type lung adenocarcinoma (P-LADC). However, the mainstay of treatment and prognosis of these two diseases are different. The purpose of this study was to distinguish C-MALT from P-LADC by pre-treatment chest computed tomography (CT) features.

Patients and methods

A total of 31 patients with C-MALT (15 men and 16 women; mean age, 61.1 ± 11.2 years) and 58 patients with P-LADC (34 men and 24 women; mean age, 68.6 ± 7.4 years) confirmed by pathology who underwent contrast-enhanced chest CT were retrospectively enrolled from September 2014 to February 2023. Detailed clinical and CT characteristics of the two groups were evaluated. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the effectiveness of statistically significant variables in distinguishing C-MALT from P-LADC.

Results

The average age of C-MALT was younger than P-LADC patients (p<0.001). With regard to CT features, bronchiectasis within the consolidation was more common in the C-MALT group than the P-LADC group [83.87% (26 of 31) vs 20.69% (12 of 58), p<0.001]; whereas lymph nodes enlargement [75.86% (44 of 58) vs 9.68% (3 of 31), p<0.001] and pleural effusion [43.10% (25of 58) vs 19.35% (6 of 31), p=0.025] were more frequently observed in the P-LADC group than C-MALT group. The predictors with p<0.05 (age, bronchiectasis, lymph node enlargement, and pleural effusion) were used to construct a logistic regression model in discriminating C-MALT from P-LADC, the area under curve (AUC), positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy were 0.9555, 86.67%, 91.53%, 83.87%, 93.10%, and 89.89%, respectively.

Conclusion

C-MALT and P-LADC have differential clinical and CT features. An adequate understanding of these different characteristics can contribute to the early accurate diagnosis of C-MALT and provide an appropriate therapeutic strategy.