Li Yan

Purpose To investigate the reliability and accuracy of two pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling sequences, using two-dimensional gradient-echo echo planar imaging and 3D gradient and spin echo as the readout, respectively. Materials and Methods Each sequence was performed twice 4 weeks apart on six normal control subjects, six elderly subjects with mild cognitive impairment, and one participant with Alzheimer's disease. Eight of these subjects also underwent H 215O positron emission tomography scans on the same day or proximal to their second MRI scan. The longitudinal repeatability of EPI and GRASE pCASL were evaluated with the intraclass correlation coefficient and within-subject coefficient of variation. Results The ICCs of global perfusion measurements were 0.697 and 0.413 for GRASE and EPI based pCASL respectively. GRASE pCASL also demonstrated a higher longitudinal repeatability for regional perfusion measurements across 24 regions-of-interests compared with EPI pCASL. When compared with PET, EPI pCASL showed a higher degree of spatial correlation with PET than GRASE pCASL, although the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusion The 3D GRASE pCASL offers better repeatability than 2D EPI pCASL, thereby may provide a reliable imaging marker for the evaluation of disease progression and treatment effects in MCI and early AD subjects. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A self-designed questionnaire was given to 634 health professionals in a large teaching hospital in Hubei Province in mainland China, to clarify the participants’ attitude towards information disclosure to cancer patients. Statistic description was used to analyze the data. The item ‘inappropriate information about cancer easily leads to medical disputes’ scored highest at 3.86, while the scores of such items as ‘advantages of fully informing patients outweigh disadvantages’, ‘if their family members demand nondisclosure, you will find it difficult to cooperate in good faith with patients’, and ‘telling white lies to patients disturbs you a lot’ were less than 3. The health care staff placed a high value on both the desire and priority of patients to know the truth, though most of them did not think that patients had received enough information about their disease. In order to improve cancer patients’ current state of knowledge, health professionals should learn more about informed consent, and special methods and guidelines compatible with Chinese culture are urgently required in China