MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
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Dr. Nemesure[/caption]
Barbara Nemesure, PhD
Professor, Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine
Division Head, Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Director, Cancer Prevention and Control Program
Director, Lung Cancer Program, Stony Brook Cancer Center
Renaissance School of Medicine
Stony Brook University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer death, claiming the lives of more than 150,000 people in the United States each year. While lung nodules are not uncommon, it has remained a challenge to differentiate those that will progress to cancer and those that will remain benign. Although numerous risk prediction models for lung cancer have been developed over the past 2 decades, the majority have been based on retrospective analyses or high risk groups with a strong history of tobacco use. To date, there have been a limited number of large-scale, prospective studies evaluating risk that a nodule will convert to cancer in the general population.
This investigation aimed to construct a population-based risk prediction model of incident lung cancer for patients found to have a lung nodule on initial CT scan. The derived model was determined to have high accuracy for predicting nodule progression to cancer and identified a combination of clinical and radiologic predictors including age, smoking history (pack-years), a personal history of cancer, the presence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and nodule features such as size, presence of spiculation and ground glass opacity type.
When compared to patients in the low risk category, those defined as high risk had more than 14 times the risk of developing lung cancer. Quantification of reliable risk scores has high clinical utility, enabling physicians to better stratify treatment plans for their patients.
Dr. Spampinato[/caption]
Maria Vittoria Spampinato, MD
Neuroradiology Division Director
Department of Radiology and Radiological Science
Medical University of South Carolina
Charleston, SC 29425-3230
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) represents a major public health crisis worldwide. More than 5 million people currently have AD in the United States. AD is a slowly progressing neurodegenerative brain disorder with a long preclinical phase. Many people with AD first suffer from mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a decline in cognitive abilities like memory and thinking skills that is greater than that associated with normal aging. A person with MCI is at an increased risk of developing AD or another dementia, although some individuals with MCI remain cognitively stable or improve.
Anxiety is frequently observed in individuals with MCI. The reported prevalence of anxiety in MCI patients varies between 10 and 50%. In this study we evaluated a cohort of 339 individuals with MCI participating in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative study (ADNI2). During the five years of study participation, 72 patients experienced cognitive decline and were diagnosed with AD. We did not find difference in age, gender and education among patients with and without AD conversion. Patients who progressed had greater atrophy of the hippocampi and entorhinal cortex on their MRI scan, as expected (hippocampal atrophy is often used as a marker of neurodegeneration in AD), as well as greater prevalence of APOE4 is the strongest known genetic risk factor for AD. Patients who progressed to Alzheimer’s disease also had greater severity of anxiety during the study, as measured using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Questionnaire. Next we determined the effect of the MRI findings (hippocampal and entorhinal cortex atrophy), of the genetic risk factor (APOE4) and of the severity of anxiety on the time to progression to AD. We found that higher levels of anxiety were associated with faster progression from MCI to AD, independently of whether they had a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease or brain volume loss. We still need to understand better the association between anxiety disorders and cognitive decline. We do not know whether increased levels of anxiety are a consequence of cognitive decline or if anxiety exacerbates to cognitive decline. If we were able to find in the future that anxiety is actually contributing to cognitive decline, then we should more aggressively screen for anxiety disorders in the elderly population. 
Dr. Kooraki[/caption]
Soheil Kooraki MSR MS, MD
on behalf of Dr. Ali Gholamrezanezhad MD and co-authors
Department of Radiological Sciences,
David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: COVID19 is a novel strain of the coronavirus family causing pneumonia. Two similar strains were discovered in 2003 and 2012 to cause the so-called SARS and MERS outbreaks, respectively. Radiologists need to be prepared for the escalating incidence of COVID-19. We reviewed the literature to extract the epidemiologic and imaging features of SARS and MERS in comparison with known imaging features of COVID-19 pneumonia to have a better understanding of the imaging features of the COVID19 pneumonia in acute and post-recovery stages.
Dr. Callaghan[/caption]