Sofia Michopoulou

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust · Nuclear Medicine Physics

Background: Neuroinflammation is an integral part of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. Inflammatory mediators can exacerbate the production of amyloid-β (Aβ), the propagation of tau pathology and neuronal loss. Objective: To evaluate the relationship between inflammation markers and established markers of AD in a mixed memory clinic cohort. M...

Introduction

Delayed diagnosis and lack of effective therapies results in the death of approximately 30% of patients with AL-amyloidosis (AL-A) within the first year of diagnosis. Autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) remains an important treatment option, resulting in improved organ function and survival in responders, however its utility is restricted d...

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate three thyroid blockade regimes to determine which protocol provides the optimal level of thyroidal protection for paediatric 123-I-meta-iodobenzylguanidine (mIBG) imaging and estimate the relative radiation dose inferred from unbound radioiodine. Methods: A total of 231 patients were retrospective...

The SEL-I-METRY trial (EudraCT No 2015-002269-47) is the first multicentre trial to investigate the role of ¹²³ I and ¹³¹ I SPECT/CT-based tumour dosimetry to predict response to radioiodine therapy. Standardised dosimetry methodology is essential to provide a robust evidence-base for absorbed dose–response thresholds for molecular radiotherapy (MR...

At University Hospital Southampton we have a large, varied patient cohort with high enrolment in clinical research projects and trials, many of which include acquisitions using various modalities such as SPECT, PET, CT, and MRI. Clinical imaging data is well accommodated on PACS, but research imaging data management requires a different approach to...

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate and benchmark the performance characteristics of the General Electric (GE) Discovery Molecular Imaging (MI) Digital Ready (DR) PET/CT. Materials and methods: Performance evaluation against the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) 2012 standard was performed on three GE Discovery M...

PurposeCurrently, most centres use 2-D planar lymphoscintigraphy when performing dynamic sentinel lymph node biopsy in penile cancer patients with clinically impalpable inguinal nodes. This study aimed to investigate the role of SPECT/CT following 2-D planar lymphoscintigraphy (dynamic and static) in the detection and localization of sentinel lymph...

Background: Ga68 labelled somatostatin receptor ligand PET imaging has recently been shown in preclinical and early human studies to have a potential role in the evaluation of vulnerable arterial plaques. We prospectively evaluated carotid plaque Ga68-DOTATATE uptake in patients with recent carotid events, assessed inter- and intra- observer varia...

Methods: A total of 104 patients (55 male and 49 female; median age, 58 y; range, 20-90 y) with histologically proven neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) underwent both (68)Ga-DOTATATE and (18)F-FDG PET/CT. Twenty-eight patients (26.9%) had poorly differentiated tumors, and 76 (73.1%) had well-differentiated tumors. PET/CT results and SUVs were compared...

Rationale: (68)Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT scan is a widely accepted method for imaging of neuroendocrine tumours (NETs). This cross-sectional study was performed to review the first 8 years of patient data from a large (68)Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT database in order to establish the impact of the modality on patient treatment and survival. Methods: Demographic...

Myocardial perfusion imaging is a well-established and widely used imaging technique for the assessment of patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease. Pitfalls and artifacts associated with conventional gamma cameras are well known, and the ways to avoid and correct them have been described. In recent years solid-state detector dedica...

Background: Simultaneous PET-MRI is used to compare patterns of cerebral hypometabolism and atrophy in six different dementia syndromes. Objectives: The primary objective was to conduct an initial exploratory study regarding the concordance of atrophy and hypometabolism in syndromic variants of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementi...

Purpose: To examine the feasibility of simultaneous acquisition of F-fluoroethylcholine (F-choline) PET and functional MRI (standardized uptake value [SUV]max/mean and apparent diffusion coefficient [ADC]mean), using a hybrid PET/MRI scanner, for diagnosis and response assessment in a cohort of children with astrocytic brain tumors. Methods: F-c...

The aim of this study was to prospectively compare whole-body PET/MR imaging and PET/CT, qualitatively and quantitatively, in oncologic patients and assess the confidence and degree of inter- and intraobserver agreement in anatomic lesion localization. Fifty patients referred for staging with known cancers underwent PET/CT with low-dose CT for atte...

The aim of the study was to evaluate the value of single-photon emission computerized tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) in the clinical assessment of painful knee prostheses. Between 2009 and 2011 we identified 105 patients who had undergone Tc-hydroxydiphosphonate SPECT/CT for painful knee prosthesis. Complete follow-up data were available...

Assessment of bone quality is an emerging solution for quantifying the effects of bone pathology or treatment. Perhaps one of the most important parameters characterising bone quality is the toughness behaviour of bone. Particularly, fracture toughness, is becoming a popular means for evaluating bone quality. The method is moving from a single valu...

SRµCT characterisation of the whitening. During the three-point bending experiment the crack propagated from the initial notch site upwards and got arrested by the osteon seen in the top-left of the frame. During this process, in front of the crack-tip and close to the pre-notch site two distinct whitening zones were developed which as showed by th...

The “whitening-front tracking method”; example 1. Videographic analysis of a three point bending experiment of a miniature SE(B) cortical bone specimen. The “whitening” is localised through the difference image calculated between the current and the first frame of the video, in which no whitening has yet been developed. The whitening-front is then...

Whitening front- and crack propagation association. Videography of a three point bending experiment of a pre-notched whole rat tibia showing the synchronous whitening- and crack propagation. (WMV)

The “whitening-front tracking method”; example 2. Videographic analysis of a three point bending experiment of a miniature SE(B) cortical bone specimen. The “whitening” is localised through the difference image calculated between the current and the first frame of the video, in which no whitening has been developed yet. The whitening-front is then...

Intervertebral disc degeneration is related to chronic back pain and functional incapacity. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is the modality of choice for diagnosing this condition, providing both morphological and biochemical information for the disc tissue. In clinical practice, grading schemes based on qualitative descriptions of disc image feat...

Disc degeneration quantification is important for monitoring the effects of new therapeutic methods, such as cell and growth factor therapy. Magnetic resonance (MR) image texture reflects biochemical and structural tissue properties and has been used for differentiating between normal and pathological status in a variety of medical applications. To...

Although the literature on degenerative disease of the cervical spine contains numerous articles studying the changes on levels adjacent to a fusion, there exist very few such studies concerning cervical spine stabilization for trauma. Over a 16-year period (1989-2005), one hundred and twelve patients underwent stabilization of the lower cervical s...

A texture-based pattern recognition system is proposed for the automatic characterization of cervical intervertebral disc degeneration from saggital magnetic resonance images of the spine. A case sample of 50 manually segmented ROIs, corresponding to 25 normal and 25 degenerated discs, was analyzed and textural features were generated from each dis...

Magnetic Resonance Imaging is the modality of reference for diagnosing intervertebral disc degeneration, a condition related to chronic back pain. Segmentation of intervertebral discs is a prerequisite for computer aided diagnosis, while it could also serve in computer based surgery planning. A small number of studies report on disc segmentation me...