Pedro Francisco Ferraz de Arruda

Quantification of fractal dimension and Shannon’s entropy in histological diagnosis of prostate cancer

BackgroundProstate cancer is a serious public health problem that affects quality of life and has a significant mortality rate. The aim of the present study was to quantify the fractal dimension and Shannon’s entropy in the histological diagnosis of prostate cancer.MethodsThirty-four patients with prostate cancer aged 50 to 75 years having been submitted to radical prostatectomy participated in the study. Histological slides of normal (N), hyperplastic (H) and tumor (T) areas of the prostate were digitally photographed with three different magnifications (40x, 100x and 400x) and analyzed. The fractal dimension (FD), Shannon’s entropy (SE) and number of cell nuclei (NCN) in these areas were compared.ResultsFD analysis demonstrated the following significant differences between groups: T vs. N and H vs. N groups (p < 0.05) at a magnification of 40x; T vs. N (p < 0.01) at 100x and H vs. N (p < 0.01) at 400x. SE analysis revealed the following significant differences groups: T vs. H and T vs. N (p < 0.05) at 100x; and T vs. H and T vs. N (p < 0.001) at 400x. NCN analysis demonstrated the following significant differences between groups: T vs. H and T vs. N (p < 0.05) at 40x; T vs. H and T vs. N (p < 0.0001) at 100x; and T vs. H and T vs. N (p < 0.01) at 400x.ConclusionsThe quantification of the FD and SE, together with the number of cell nuclei, has potential clinical applications in the histological diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Multi-scale lacunarity as an alternative to quantify and diagnose the behavior of prostate cancer

Abstract Prostate cancer is a serious public health problem accounting for up to 30% of clinical tumors in men. The diagnosis of this disease is made with clinical, laboratorial and radiological exams, which may indicate the need for transrectal biopsy. Prostate biopsies are discerningly evaluated by pathologists in an attempt to determine the most appropriate conduct. This paper presents a set of techniques for identifying and quantifying regions of interest in prostatic images. Analyses were performed using multi-scale lacunarity and distinct classification methods: decision tree, support vector machine and polynomial classifier. The performance evaluation measures were based on area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). The most appropriate region for distinguishing the different tissues (normal, hyperplastic and neoplasic) was defined: the corresponding lacunarity values and a rule’s model were obtained considering combinations commonly explored by specialists in clinical practice. The best discriminative values (AUC) were 0.906, 0.891 and 0.859 between neoplasic versus normal, neoplasic versus hyperplastic and hyperplastic versus normal groups, respectively. The proposed protocol offers the advantage of making the findings comprehensible to pathologists.

Unsupervised segmentation method for cuboidal cell nuclei in histological prostate images based on minimum cross entropy

This paper presents a novel segmentation method for cuboidal cell nuclei in images of prostate tissue stained with hematoxylin and eosin. The proposed method allows segmenting normal, hyperplastic and cancerous prostate images in three steps: pre-processing, segmentation of cuboidal cell nuclei and post-processing. The pre-processing step consists of applying contrast stretching to the red (R) channel to highlight the contrast of cuboidal cell nuclei. The aim of the second step is to apply global thresholding based on minimum cross entropy to generate a binary image with candidate regions for cuboidal cell nuclei. In the post-processing step, false positives are removed using the connected component method. The proposed segmentation method was applied to an image bank with 105 samples and measures of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were compared with those provided by other segmentation approaches available in the specialized literature. The results are promising and demonstrate that the proposed method allows the segmentation of cuboidal cell nuclei with a mean accuracy of 97%.

Giant polycystic kidney and acute abdomen in chronic renal failure

The case of a rare complication is reported of a 53-year-old patient with giant polycystic kidney (4250 g) that evolved with acute small bowel occlusion. The patient was submitted to surgery which identified that the intestinal occlusion was due to external compression of the intestinal loops. Excision of the mass solved the case.

Association of Hypertension With Erectile Function in Chronic Peripheral Arterial Insufficiency Patients

Background Risk factors may influence the improvement or worsening of erectile dysfunction (ED). The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effect of systemic hypertension on ED in patients with peripheral arterial disease. Methods The effect of hypertension on ED was assessed in 125 consecutive patients in a cross-sectional quantitative study. The ages of the patients ranged from 19 to 88 years old (mean: 59.82 ± 10.48 years). The only exclusion criterion was the amputation of one or both legs. The ankle-arm index was assessed and the international index of ED questionnaire was applied to all participants in the study. Results Of the 125 patients, 22 (17.6%) had mild (grade 1), 50 (40.0%) had moderate (grade 2) and 53 (42.4%) had severe (grade 3) ED. Hypertensive patients have more ED, with ED in hypertensive patients being associated to chronic arterial disease. However, in comparison with normotensive patients, hypertension exerts an immediate protective effect on erectile function. Conclusions In conclusion, although erectile function is initially protected by systemic arterial hypertension in patients with chronic arterial disease, both chronic arterial disease and ED deteriorate over the long term in hypertensive patients.

Penile Replantation After Five Hours of Warm Ischemia

Although a rare occurrence, this event may occur as a result of self-mutilation among individuals with psychiatric disturbances or due to work-related accidents, iatrogenic injuries or the actions of individuals motivated by jealously, rage and feelings of betrayal. In western societies, most penile amputations are the result of self-aggression during a psychotic episode, the treatment of victims involves resuscitation, stabilization and immediate psychiatric support. The amputated tissue must be preserved under hypothermic conditions. Micro-surgery is currently the most widely employed method for penile replantation. This paper describes a successful case of penile replantation following 5 hours of warm ischemia.

Prostatic paracoccidioidomycosis with a fatal outcome: a case report

IntroductionParacoccidioidomycosis is a systemic mycosis in Latin America that can affect various organs. Few case reports of paracoccidioidomycosis affecting the prostate are found in the literature.Case presentationWe present the case of a 79-year-old Caucasian man with a six-month history of irritative symptoms of the prostate (urgency, frequency and nocturia) and difficulty initiating urination that progressed to urinary retention and the use of a urinary catheter. The anatomopathological analysis of the transurethral resection of the prostate revealed chronic granulomatous prostatitis of fungal etiology (paracoccidioidomycosis) with extensive necrosis. The patient began treatment with itraconazole at a dose of 100mg/day for six months. Radiography of the thorax revealed bilaterally diffuse nodular reticular interstitial lesions. The patient progressed to respiratory failure and was sent to the intensive care unit, but suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest and was pronounced dead.ConclusionsDue to the high incidence of paracoccidioidomycosis in countries like Brazil, urologists should suspect blastomycosis in all patients with symptoms of lower urinary obstruction with chronic abacterial prostatitis. Considering that paracoccidioidomycosis has the potential to affect various organs, following diagnosis, the treatment must be initiated as soon as possible.

Inguinal hernia with ureter in patient with single kidney

Inguinal hernias are a common disease in adults, but involvement of extraperitoneal structures is rare. This condition is usually asymptomatic and an incidental finding during the surgical correction of inguinal hernias, often resulting in iatrogenic damage. We present a rare case of left renal agenesis and right inguinal hernia, with the ureter being the only organ protruding as an inguinal hernia, diagnosed in the preoperative period.

Clinical Treatment of Penile Fibrosis After Penoscrotal Lymphedema

Genital lymphedema in men can affect the penis and/or scrotum, causing deformity and causing sexual limitations, social isolation, poor quality of life and recurrent subcutaneous infections due to difficulties in hygiene. There are few studies in the literature emphasizing the treatment of penile fibrosis after penoscrotal lymphedema. The purpose of this report is to describe a case of penile fibrosis treated using a new compression method.

Incidental Diagnosis of Nonfunctional Bladder Paraganglioma.

Nonfunctional bladder paragangliomas may present clinical, radiology and pathological features similar to bladder cancer, so knowledge of this generally benign neuroendocrine neoplasm is of great importance to avoid misdiagnosis. We present the case of a patient with no clinical symptoms of paraganglioma and with radiological and cystoscopy examination results suggestive of urothelial carcinoma but with pathological diagnosis of paraganglioma.