CASE REPORT: A 34-year-old woman with intractable epigastric pain was referred to have repeated endoscopy with biopsy. She was found to multiple gastric erosions and nodules that were diagnosed as inflammatory lesions both endoscopically and histologically. Meanwhile, she developed an acute onset of severe back pain associated with a pathologic compression fracture in the T3 thoracic vertebral body. Imaging studies disclosed a disseminated systemic disease involving abdominopelvic lymph nodes and cervical and thoracic vertebral bodies. The needle biopsy of the pelvic lymph node disclosed diffuse proliferation of monomorphic small round cells that were diffusely positive for CD30 and ALK. A diagnosis of ALK+ ALCL with a monomorphic SC pattern was rendered.
DISCUSSION: A retrospective review of the gastric biopsies with the aid of immunohistochemistry enabled us to recognise the presence of lymphomatous infiltrates with a mixed LH and SC pattern in every piece of gastric biopsies that were repeatedly misdiagnosed as inflammatory lesions. This case illustrates a significant diagnostic pitfall of the LH- and SC-patterns in ALK+ ALCL, in which the tumour cells featuring lymphoid, plasmacytoid or histiocytoid appearance can be masqueraded as inflammatory cells.
DESIGN: An exploratory qualitative study with 55 parent-participants of Good Enough Parenting was conducted.
METHODS: One-to-one interviews were conducted with participants, using critical incident technique and guided by semi-structured interview schedule, to explore their experiences with the program. Transcripts were then analyzed using thematic analysis.
RESULTS: Coding showed a high degree of inter-rater reliability (kappa value of 0.78). The themes that emerged were Cultivating Awareness of Parents' Own Schemas, Cultivating Intentionality, Working through Developmental Issues, Responses to Challenges at Home, Performing Multiple Roles, and the Learning Process. Participants overwhelmingly reported satisfaction within these key themes.
CONCLUSIONS: The results support the development of the program and the choice of "participant reported outcome measures" for use in subsequent randomized controlled trials.
METHODS: The administered activity of 177 Lu-DOTATATE was 7.99 ± 0.36 GBq. SPECT/CT images were acquired 0.5, 4, 24, and 48 h after injection in Sunway Medical Centre. For the multiple VSV method, VSV kernels of 177 Lu in media with various densities were generated by Geant4 Application for Emission Tomography (GATE) simulation first. The second step involved the convolution of the time-integrated activity map with each kernel to produce medium-specific dose maps. Third, each medium-specific dose map was masked using binary medium masks, which were generated from CT-based density maps. Finally, all masked dose maps were summed to generate the final dose map. VSV methods with four different VSV sets (1, 4, 10, and 20 VSVs) were compared. Voxel-wise density correction for the single VSV method was also performed. The absorbed doses in the kidneys, bone marrow, and tumors were analyzed, and the relative errors between the VSV and Monte Carlo simulation approaches were estimated. Organ-based dosimetry using Organ Level INternal Dose Assessment/EXponential Modeling (OLINDA/EXM) was also compared.
RESULTS: The accuracy of the multiple VSV approach increased with the number of dose kernels. The average dose estimation errors of a single VSV with density correction and 20 VSVs were less than 6% in most cases, although organ-based dosimetry using OLINDA/EXM yielded an error of up to 123%. The advantages of the single VSV method with density correction and the 20 VSVs over organ-based dosimetry were most evident in bone marrow and bone-metastatic tumors with heterogeneous medium properties.
CONCLUSION: The single VSV method with density correction and multiple VSV method with 20 dose kernels enabled fast and accurate radiation dose estimation. Accordingly, voxel-based dosimetry methods can be useful for managing administration activity and for investigating tumor dose responses to further increase the therapeutic efficacy of 177 Lu-DOTATATE.