Lauro Wichert-Ana

Lauro Wichert-Ana
University of São Paulo | USP · Ribeirão Preto Medical School - FMRP - USP

MD, MSc, Ph.D - Instagram: @laurowichert - Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauro-wichert-ana-80a8b017/
Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (PET/CT) in Diagnostic, Research, and Teaching.

About

324
Publications
43,118
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Introduction
Lauro Wichert-Ana, MD, PhD, is associate professor and head of the Nuclear Medicine and PET/CT Unit, Department of Medical Imaging, Hematology and Oncology, Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo - USP - Brazil. Graduated in medicine (1985-1991), medical residence in neurology (1993-1996) and nuclear medicine (2001-2002), M.Sc. (2000) and PhD degrees (2005) by USP. Research interests are: Nuclear Medicine, Molecular Imaging and PET/CT in Neurosciences and Oncology.
Additional affiliations
June 2008 - June 2017
University of São Paulo
Position
  • Associate Professor, Supervisor and Coordinator Nuclear Medicine Section, The Clinical Hospital
January 2008 - June 2017
University of São Paulo
Position
  • Head of Department
June 2008 - September 2016
University of São Paulo
Position
  • Associate Professor, Supervisor and Coordinator Nuclear Medicine Section, The Clinical Hospital

Publications

Publications (324)
Article
Full-text available
COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, presents diverse symptoms, including neurological manifestations. This study investigated COVID-19's neurological sequelae, focusing on the central nervous system's involvement through cerebral glycolytic metabolism assessed via PET/CT. Twenty-two patients with mild long COVID cognitive symptoms and 20 healthy volunt...
Conference Paper
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Theranostic Nuclear Medicine is based on the idea of combining the same molecule (or drug) with different radio-isotopes, both for diagnosis and treatment, a concept that emerged in the early 1940s with thyroid diseases. It has since expanded to diseases of higher incidence, such as prostate cancer with several imaging methods used to assess the ex...
Article
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Bone regeneration is crucial for repairing bone tissue following various injuries. Research techniques that enable the study of metabolic changes in bone tissue under different conditions are important for understanding bone repair and remodeling. This study used bone scintigraphy to evaluate osteogenesis secondary to osteotomy in a preclinical mod...
Poster
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Objective: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and lethal glioma. Several imaging radiotracers were described to differentiate high-grade from low-grade gliomas; however, they usually show some limitations for their widespread use (high tumor-to-background ratio or not available for most nuclear medicine centers). Prostate-specific membrane antig...
Article
Background: The application of automated analyses in neuroscience has become a practical approach. With automation, the algorithms and tools employed perform fast and accurate data analysis. It minimizes the inherent errors of manual analysis performed by a human experimenter. It also reduces the time required to analyze a large amount of data and...
Article
Objective: People with epilepsy are at an increased risk of experiencing executive dysfunction, particularly those with frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE). The literature has also demonstrated alterations in executive functioning (EF) in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). However, few studies have examined the neuropsychological profile of poste...
Article
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Background: Gabapentin is an effective therapeutic alternative for chronic low back pain, indicated in several guidelines for treating neuropathic pain as first-line medication. This study aimed to describe the pharmacodynamics of gabapentin in the central nervous system of patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) by using single-photon emission...
Article
A 15-year-old adolescent boy with left body epilepsia partialis continua, hemiparesis, and electroencephalogram abnormalities lateralized to the right hemisphere. MRI finding was small hyperintense signal in the left putamen. 18F-FDG PET showed focal glucose hypermetabolism in the right paracentral lobule and hypometabolism in the inferior right fr...
Article
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PurposeWe aimed to analyze the potential for postoperative (PO) medication suspension and reduction, emphasizing passive withdrawal.Methods Retrospective study of patients under 18 years old submitted to surgical treatment for pharmacoresistant epilepsy and classified as Engel I during the first year of PO follow-up. Therapeutic management was eval...
Article
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Background and aims Molecular imaging of the dopamine transporters (DAT) provides valuable information about neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s. This study assessed the accuracy and precision of DAT-SPECT quantification methods. Methods Twenty-three DAT-SPECT images of a striatal phantom were acquired. The specific (caudate and putame...
Article
Purpose Thyroid incidentaloma is an abnormal finding detected by imaging exams and which was not the initial reason for performing it. This article aimed to verify the prevalence of TI in PSMA PET/CT and to analyze its risk of malignancy through a systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods A systematic search through electronic databases was cond...
Article
Full-text available
Background Recent neuroimaging studies have demonstrated pathological mechanisms related to cerebral neuroplasticity in chronic low back pain (CLBP). Few studies have compared cerebral changes between patients with and without pain in the absence of an experimentally induced stimulus. We investigated the neurobiological substrates associated with c...
Article
Full-text available
Background Studies indicate sleeve gastrectomy (SG) as a factor of aggravation or even emergence of symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease. Accelerated gastric emptying is described as a mitigating factor. SG may be potentiated by adding a pyloroplasty, although with the potential risk of resulting in duodenogastric alkaline reflux. The object...
Article
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Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate different quantitative indexes of striatum dopamine transporter density in healthy subjects and patients with PD. Patients and methods: Sixty-seven patients, 23 healthy (8 male; 59 ± 11 years old) and 44 age-matched patients (29 male; 59 ± 7 years old), with various degrees of severity of idiopathic...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background and Aims: Molecular imaging of the dopamine transporters (DAT) provides usefull information about neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s. This study assessed the accuracy and precision of DAT-SPECT quantification methods. Methods: Twenty-three DAT-SPECT images of a striatal phantom. The specific chambers (caudate and putamen) an...
Preprint
Full-text available
Recent neuroimaging studies have demonstrated pathological mechanisms related to cerebral neuroplasticity in chronic low back pain (CLBP). Few studies have compared cerebral changes between patients with and without pain in the absence of an experimentally induced stimulus. We investigated the neurobiological substrates associated with chronic low...
Article
Full-text available
Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common type of focal epilepsy and is frequently drug-resistant (DR) to antiseizure medication (ASM), corresponding to approximately one-third of the cases. When left inadequately treated, it can worsen the quality of life, cognitive deficits, and risk of death. The standard treatment for drug-resistant TLE i...
Article
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Introduction: This study reports on the translation, cultural adaptation, and validation of a Portuguese version of the Rotterdam Elderly Pain Observation Scale (REPOS), a Dutch scale to assess pain in patients who cannot communicate, with or without dementia. Methods: This is a multicenter study in pain and neurological units involving Brazil (...
Article
Background Cognitive functioning in epileptic syndromes has been widely explored in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), but few studies have investigated the neuropsychological profile in posterior cortex epilepsy (PCE). In this study, we investigated the presurgical intellectual profile of children and adolescents with drug-resistant PCE....
Article
Full-text available
Neurocryptococcosis, a meningoencephalitis caused by Cryptococcus spp, is treated with amphotericin B (AmB) combined with fluconazole. The integrity of the brain-blood barrier and the composition of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) may change due to infectious and/or inflammatory diseases such as neurocryptococcosis allowing for the penetration of AmB...
Article
Full-text available
This study was addressed to evaluate the temporal and spatial changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) of patients with neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE). Our objective was to correlate the subtracted SPECT coregistered to MRI features (SISCOM) with demographic, clinical and laboratory findings to shed light upon the patho...
Preprint
Full-text available
This study was addressed to evaluate the temporal and spatial changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) of patients with neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus (NPSLE). Our objective was to correlate the subtracted SPECT coregistered to MRI features (SISCOM) with demographic, clinical and laboratory findings to shed light upon the patho...
Article
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This study describes methods to improve resting energy expenditure (REE) estimated by the indirect calorimetry by evaluating predictors for the achievement of steady-state conditions (SSC). Cross-sectional study carried out with 20 women (30.2 ± 4.1 years; 27.8 ± 6.7 kg/m2). Indirect calorimetry was performed with the Quark RMR® calorimeter, during...
Article
Background Imaging studies have shown brain abnormalities associated with eating behavior (taste perception, food intake and food reward), neural connectivity and cognition related to obese state. Here, we investigated if obese subjects have changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) during fasting and rest using Single-photon Emission Tomograp...
Article
Objective The objective of this study was to analyze the impact of pediatric epilepsy surgery on the quality of life (QOL), determining whether patients improve, worsen, or maintain their preoperative patterns, as it relates to the burden of caregivers, as well as evaluating potential related factors, from both the children and caregivers perspecti...
Article
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Reflex seizures are consistently elicited by a specific afferent sensory stimulus or an activity undertaken by the patient. Among many known stimuli, defecation has rarely been reported. We describe the case of a child with reflex seizures triggered by defecation, considering the diagnostic challenge, epilepsy evaluation with video‐EEG monitoring,...
Article
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Purpose The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of ordered subsets maximization expectation (OSEM) and filtered backprojection (FBP) reconstruction algorithms for the qualitative interpretation of DAT-SPECT. Methods Data were acquired using an anthropomorphic striatal phantom and a gamma camera (SPECT/CT). Images were reconstructed using...
Article
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We report a 44-year-old female patient diagnosed with neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus and probable ischemia secondary to vasculitis in the speech motor region (Broca's area). After corticosteroid treatment, the patient recovered the speech, presented clinical improvement, and SISCOM showed reperfusion of the ischemic area (luxury perf...
Article
This study describes the development and validation of a method for the analysis of unbound plasma concentrations of oxcarbazepine (OXC) and of the enantiomers of its active metabolite 10-hydroxycarbazepine (MHD) [S-(+)- and R-(−)-MHD] using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS). Additionally, the free fraction of the drug...
Article
Background: Myocardial perfusion defects (MPD) due to coronary microvascular dysfunction is frequent in chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCC) and may be involved with development of myocardial damage. We investigated whether MPD precedes left ventricular systolic dysfunction and tested the hypothesis that prolonged use of dipyridamole (DIPY) could r...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose of Review To make a brief review on the pre-treatment evaluation of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) with positron emission tomography/computed tomography with 18F-Fluoro-deoxy-glucose (¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT) and to discuss the use of this method after treatment, with emphasis on the evaluation of therapeutic response. Recent Finding...
Article
This study describes the development and validation of a method for the analysis of unbound plasma concentrations of oxcarbazepine (OXC) and of the enantiomers of its active metabolite 10-hydroxycarbazepine (MHD) [S-(+)- and R-(-)-MHD] using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Additionally, the free fraction of the drug...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: Epilepsy is a neurological disease that affects millions of people. Despite recent advances in the diagnosis and pharmacologic treatment of this disease, seizures remain refractory to treatment in approximately 30% of cases. In many cases the pharmacological treatment is unsuccessful, so it is essential to accurately locate the epileptog...
Article
Full-text available
Pain measure is a challenge for professionals who deal with non-communicating patients, such as newborns, babies, children with cognitive impairment, adults and elderly. The most reliable detection of pain in these population is essential for correct treatment to provide relief. The COMFORT-Behavior scale to assess pain in 0-to 3-year-old children,...
Article
Full-text available
Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate angular, spatial, and energy resolution, sensitivity, and shielding of a gamma-probe. Materials and methods: The EUROPROBE II gamma-probe (EuroRad) with sources of technetium-99m was assessed according to NEMA NU-3-2004. Resolution tests were evaluated considering the full width at half maximum (F...
Article
Full-text available
Oxcarbazepine is indicated for the treatment of partial or generalized tonic-clonic seizures. The majority of the oxcarbazepine is converted into its active metabolite, 10-hydroxycarbazepine (MHD), which can exist as R-(-)- and S-(+)-MHD enantiomers. Here we describe the influence of the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) inhibitor verapamil, on the disposition...
Article
Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy associated with hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-HS) is one of the most common types of focal epilepsies. This is an epileptic syndrome commonly associated with treatment-resistant seizures, being also the most prevalent form of drug-resistant epilepsy which is treated surgically in most epilepsy surgery centers. Neurocysti...
Article
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We report a 56-year-old female patient with non-Hodgkin's diffuse large B cell lymphoma (NHL) who, on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a T1 weighted and gadolinium-enhanced imaging, was found to have thickening and infiltration in 75% of peripheral nerves of the patient and enlargements of cranial nerves, possibly related to lymphomatous infil...
Article
This study examined the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of the PACS system compared to the screen /film in digital mammograms
Article
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Medical image registration plays an important role in determining topographic and morphological changes for functional diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Manual alignment and semi-automated software still have been used; however they are subjective and make specialists spend precious time. Fully automated methods are faster and user-independent,...
Article
Levodopa is the most effective and commom drug for treating Parkinson’s Disease (PD). However, long-term use of levodopa is often complicated by significantly disabling fluctuations and dyskinesias. Younger age of Parkinson’s disease onset, disease severity, and high levodopa dose increase the risk of development of levodopa-induced dyskinesias (LI...
Article
Full-text available
Pain assessment is a challenge for professionals who deal with patients who face difficulties in communication, such as the elderly and children with cognitive impairment. The most reliable detection of pain in these groups is essential for correct targeting and treatment provide relief to patients. In Brazil there are few tools developed to identi...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose Oxcarbazepine (OXC), a second-generation antiepileptic, and its chiral metabolite 10-hydroxycarbazepine (MHD) are substrates of P-glycoprotein, which can be inhibited by verapamil. This study evaluated the influence of verapamil on the pharmacokinetics of OXC and MHD enantiomers in healthy volunteers. Methods Healthy volunteers (n = 12) on...
Article
Ayahuasca is an Amazonian botanical hallucinogenic brew which contains dimethyltryptamine, a 5-HT2A receptor agonist, and harmine, a monoamine-oxidase A inhibitor. Our group recently reported that ayahuasca administration was associated with fast-acting antidepressive effects in 6 depressive patients. The objective of the present work was to assess...
Article
Objective: To analyze the budget impact of using the picture archiving and communication system (PACS) in comparison to the screen/film system. Methods: The budget impact analysis was conducted on the basis of registry data from the Clinics Hospital of the Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil. The budget impacts w...
Article
Full-text available
AIM: To evaluate the neurovascular (99mTc-ECD SPECT) and metabolic (18F-FDG PET) coupling in patients with re- fractory epilepsy associated to normal MRI.MATERIAL AND METHODS: Twenty-seven patients with refractory ep- ilepsy and normal MRI from the Epilepsy Surgery Center (CIREP) were screened to this study. All patients underwent interictal 99m-Tc...
Article
Full-text available
AIM: Molecular imaging of DAT gives differential information in research of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s Disease (PD), when properly approached quantitatively. Yet, each method used in clinical routine may give, or not, different results when the quantifications are applied in images of several activity levels. Hence, this study...
Article
Full-text available
AIM: To evaluate spatial, angular and energy resolution; shielding and sensitivity of a high energy gamma-probe ac- cording to international standards for non-imaging intraopera- tive probes. The objective was to assure its usefulness in sen- tinel lymph node localization and reminiscent thyroid cancer. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We tested the wide-rang...
Article
Full-text available
AIM: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is characterized by chronic, progressive and degenerative disorder. Brain SPECT scans using 99mTc-TRODAT-1 radiotracer evidence the striatal den- sity of Dopamine Transporters (DAT). This is particularly im- portant in the evaluation of PD. However, there was a need for standardized protocols for image reconstruction a...
Article
Full-text available
AIM: The Attenuation Correction (AC) of gamma photons poses a clinical problem in the evaluation of ictal SPECT in Frontal Lobe Epilepsy. The main issue is that mesially located seizure focus may be underestimated. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the AC on brain SPECT images in patients with Frontal Lobe Epilepsy (FLE). MATERIALS AND MET...
Article
Full-text available
AIM: To evaluate angular, spatial and energy resolution, side and back shielding and the final sensitivity according to international standards of quality control for non-imaging probes. The objective in our work was to assure its usefulness in sentinel lymph node localization in patients with melanoma and breast cancer patients. MATERIAL AND METHO...
Article
Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of surgery with neuronavigation compared to conventional neurosurgical treatment of epilepsy in terms of safety and seizure outcomes and to assess the quality of the evidence base of neuronavigation in this clinical context. Method: Systematic review using the electronic databases of Cochrane, CRD, PubMed, Embas...
Article
Objective: To test if chronic calcificed neurocysticercosis (cNCC) and hippocampal sclerosis occur more often than by chance ipsilateral to the same brain hemisphere or brain region in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy associated with hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-HS) plus neurocysticercosis. This proof-of-concept would provide important evidence of a d...
Article
Full-text available
This paper emphasizes the methodology of data collection of indirect calorimetry, including establishment of steady state conditions and the standards in which the values are presented. It also aims to describe in details the calculations of VO2, VCO2, Resting Energy Expenditure (REE) and Respiratory Quotient (RQ). The trial is registered with Clin...
Article
Full-text available
Ayahuasca (AYA), a natural psychedelic brew prepared from Amazonian plants and rich in dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and harmine, causes effects of subjective well-being and may therefore have antidepressant actions. This study sought to evaluate the effects of a single dose of AYA in six volunteers with a current depressive episode. Open-label trial co...
Article
Full-text available
As Avaliações de Tecnologias em Saúde (ATS) no mundo todo, predominantemente tem sido focadas em medicamentos, dispositivos médicos terapêuticos e procedimentos, sobretudo, os cirúrgicos. Apesar de sua inquestionável importância na história natural de um grande número de doenças e do impacto econômico associado ao seu uso, os testes e exames diagnó...
Article
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AIMS: To assess the relationship between gastrointestinal transit (GT) and chronic vomiting in patients that underwent to gastric resection for obesity with Roux‐en‐ Y reconstruction . METHODS: 31 patients that underwent to gastric resection for obesity with Roux‐en‐Y reconstruction consented to participate in research. This sample included 21 pati...
Article
Full-text available
AIMS: To evaluate the physical detection parameters of a gamma probe including the angular, spatial and energy resolutions, side and back shielding and the final sensitivity according to international standards of quality control for non‐imaging probes. The objective here is to assure its usefulness in sentinel lymph node localization in patients w...
Article
Full-text available
AIMS: To evaluate the physical detection parameters of a gamma probe including the angular, spatial and energy resolutions, side and back shielding using a 131‐ Iodine source. The objective here is to assure its usefulness in sentinel lymph node localization in patients with thyroid cancer. METHODS: We used the CsI‐Tl probe detector EUROPROBE II ®...
Article
Full-text available
Neuroimage registration has an important role in clinical (for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes) and research applications. In this article we describe the applicability of Tsallis Entropy as a new cost function for neuroimage registration through a comparative analysis based on the performance of the traditional approaches (correlation bas...
Article
Full-text available
http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/55/supplement_1/2032.abstract?sid=e2e4c78e-35a3-402e-9c88-a6b8bfe980d1%5D
Article
Full-text available
Oxcarbazepine (OXC) and its active metabolite 10-monohydroxy oxcarbazepine (MHD) enantiomers are P-glycoprotein (P-gp) substrates. This study aimed to evaluate the pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic relationship of OXC and MHD in the presence and absence of verapamil, a P-gp inhibitor. Healthy subjects (n=12) received for 5 days doses of 300 mg/12h OX...
Article
Full-text available
AIM: The Attenuation Correction (AC) of gamma photons poses a clinical problem in the evaluation of ictal SPECT in Frontal Lobe Epilepsy. The main issue is that mesially located seizure focus may be underestimated. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the AC on brain SPECT images in patients with Frontal Lobe Epilepsy (FLE). MATERIALS AND MET...