Ramprakash H V's scientific contributions

Breast thermography is a non-contact, non-invasive, and irradiation free imaging modality that is found to be applicable for detection of breast cancers. One of the main challenges with breast thermography is the subjectivity and the accuracy of visual interpretation of thermal images. In this paper, we present a systematic retrospective study that measures the performance of manual interpretation of breast thermal images and also evaluates the benefit of using a software visualization tool to aid this interpretation. The thermal analysis and visualization tool considered for this study was SMILE-100, which automatically transforms the temperature values into contrast-enhanced colour images and annotates elevated temperature regions to help thermologists in detection of signs of malignancy. The study was conducted in 258 symptomatic women and the reference used was the standard recommendation for diagnosing breast cancer involving a combination of mammography, ultrasound, and biopsy. The sensitivity and specificity of the thermologist's assessment without tool support was found to be 60.3% (95%CI: 48.2% to 72.4%) and 81.5% (95%CI: 76.1% to 87.0%), respectively. When the same thermologist was aided with SMILE-100 tool after a washout period of two months, a sensitivity and specificity of 81.0% (95% CI: 71.2% to 90.6%) and 75.9% (95% CI: 69.9% to 81.9%), respectively, was observed. Furthermore, the sensitivity and specificity of tool generated Hotspot annotations was found to be 85.7% (95%CI: 77.1% to 94.4%) and 70.3% (95%CI: 63.8% to 76.7%), respectively. These results show that SMILE-100 can be a good tool to improve the interpretation accuracy of thermal images and reduce the subjectivity in interpretation.

Purpose: To evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of Thermalytix, an artificial intelligence-based computer-aided diagnostics (CADx) engine, to detect breast malignancy by comparing the CADx output with the final diagnosis derived using standard screening modalities. Methods: This multisite observational study included 470 symptomatic and asymptomatic women who presented for a breast health checkup in two centers. Among them, 238 women had symptoms such as breast lump, nipple discharge, or breast pain, and the rest were asymptomatic. All participants underwent a Thermalytix test and one or more standard-of-care tests for breast cancer screening, as recommended by the radiologists. Results from Thermalytix and standard modalities were obtained independently in a blinded fashion for comparison. The ground truth used for analysis (normal or malignant) was the final impression of an expert clinician based on the symptoms and the available reports of standard modalities (mammography, ultrasonography, elastography, biopsy, fine-needle aspiration cytology, and so on). Results: For the 470 women, Thermalytix resulted in a sensitivity of 91.02% (symptomatic, 89.85%; asymptomatic, 100%) and specificity of 82.39% (symptomatic, 69.04%; asymptomatic, 92.41%) in detection of breast malignancy. Thermalytix showed an overall area under the curve (AUC) of 0.90, with an AUC of 0.82 for symptomatic and 0.98 for asymptomatic women. Conclusion: High sensitivity and high AUC of Thermalytix in women of all age groups demonstrates the efficacy of the tool for breast cancer screening. Thermalytix, with its automated scoring and image annotations of potential malignancies and vascularity, can assist the clinician in better decision making and improve quality of care in an affordable and radiation-free manner. Thus, we believe Thermalytix is poised to be a promising modality for breast cancer screening.

AIMS: The primary aim was to identify and establish new signs in plain radiography of the knee joint that could indicate soft tissue abnormalities that are established on M agnetic R esonance I maging (MRI). To correlate the plain radiographic features to that of the MRI findings which is the gold standard in the evaluation of the knee disorders? MATERIAL AND METHODS: A prospective cross sectional study was done on a total of 60 patients including both the sexes and of all age groups who presented with knee joint pain and subsequently underwent plain radiographic evaluation followed by MRI of the knee joint. The data is analyzed and the findings on plain radiographs correlated with that of MRI. RESULTS: The most common soft tissue injuries as identified on MRI of the knee joint were that of A nterior C ruciate L igament (ACL) and medial meniscus (MM). Knee joint effusion was found to be a common occurrence in cases of trauma. These findings were also identified on plain radiographs. CONCLUSION: Signs (sign complexes) on plain radiograph with regard to joint space, inter condylar region of tibia, tibial plateaus, soft tissue planes at the tibio femoral joint, supra and infra patellar regions on lateral radiograms, and calcifications in soft tissue planes indicate various soft tissue injuries of the knee as detected and confirmed on MRI. Thus plain radiograph stands as a primary imaging modality in diagnosing not only the osseous abnormalities of the knee joint but also soft tissue abnormalities in comparison to MRI

Osteopetrosis (OP) is a descriptive term that refers to a group of rare, heritable disorders of the skeleton. This condition varies greatly in their presentation and severity, ranging from neonatal onset with life-threatening complications (classic or "malignant" ARO), to the incidental finding on radiographs (ADO), due to carbonic anhydrase deficiency and an intermediate (IOP) a more uncommon form of the disease. However, this variant tends to present later in childhood. Plain radiography and sectional imaging in particular magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) plays important role in the diagnosis of the osteopetrosis and its subtypes. To demonstrate IOP radiological features, role of different imaging modalities and the importance of imaging in diagnosis especially the role of MRI in diagnosing the type of inheritance in patients of osteopetrosis. We present a case of 7 year old boy of osteopetrosis intermediate type of inheritance, diagnosed by plain radiography with clinical differential diagnosis of Thalassemia major. Plain radiography is the modality of choice in diagnosing the disease. MRI further helps to identify the variants of the osteopetrosis. This case emphasizes the importance of imaging in the diagnosis of the osteopetrosis.