Publications by authors named "Benedikt M Schaarschmidt"

Background: Consolidation therapy with the anti-programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibody durvalumab, or other immune checkpoint inhibitors, has been associated with improved progression-free and overall survival in patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) as demonstrated in randomized clinical trials. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the dose-response relationship for partial lung infiltrate volumes per dose bin after definitive radiochemotherapy as a sensitive end point to detect a durvalumab effect on the lung parenchyma in patients with subclinical or grade ≤2 pneumonitis.

Methods: Consecutive patients from a prospective registry with inoperable NSCLC stage III who developed no or pneumonitis grade ≤2 after definitive radiochemotherapy with or without durvalumab consolidation were included.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To assess degradable starch microsphere (DSM) transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) retrospectively as salvage therapy in patients with unresectable uveal melanoma (UM) liver metastases and identify prognostic factors for survival.

Materials And Methods: Fifty-five patients (49.1% male; median age, 65 years) who underwent a median of 2 DSM-TACE treatments (range, 1-12) were included.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Gunshot deaths due to homicide or military encounters are a major health concern. Noninvasive bullet characterization is of major importance for patients with lodged bullets or in mass disasters with multiple cadavers, which must be prioritized for autopsy. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate whether brass and lead bullets can be differentiated using photon-counting CT (PCCT).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: BRAF/MEK inhibitors (BRAFi/MEKi) and PD-1 and CTLA-4 immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have revolutionized malignant melanoma treatment and improved patients' clinical outcome significantly. However, these therapies are associated with substance class-specific side effects. Here, selected cases indicate a correlation between the incidence of mesenteric panniculitis (MP) and BRAFi/MEKi treatment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) and other mesenchymal tumours belong to rare, heterogeneous neoplasms with over 150 subtypes that pose significant challenges in diagnosis and clinical decision making. While guidelines address evidence-based diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, clinical situations and scenarios without evidence remain controversial in daily practice. The 2024 Conference on Challenges in Sarcoma (CCS2024) aimed to narrow these gaps with the support of an international and multidisciplinary panel of sarcoma experts.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To evaluate the success and complications of thermal ablation (TA) based on the voluntary, prospective registry of the German Society for Interventional Radiology and Minimally Invasive Therapy (DeGIR) with 303 participating centers from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Materials And Methods: Registry data from 2018 until 2023 of 1102 patients with small renal tumors (age: 72.5 ± 11.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Deep learning for body composition analysis (BCA) is gaining traction in clinical research, offering rapid and automated ways to measure body features like muscle or fat volume. However, most current methods prioritize computed tomography (CT) over magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This study presents a deep learning approach for automatic BCA using MR T2-weighted sequences.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Whole lung transpulmonary chemoembolization using a combination of doxorubicin (DXO) and degradable starch microspheres (DSM-TPCE) might be a promising treatment option in soft tissue sarcoma. To pave the way for clinical studies, this study aimed to evaluate the short-term effects of DSM-TPCE with DXO using an ex vivo isolated lung perfusion (ILP) model.

Methods: Nine lung specimens retrieved from patients undergoing lobectomy underwent ex vivo ILP.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the link between skeletal muscle quality, specifically intramuscular adipose tissue and skeletal muscle density, and survival outcomes in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) receiving transarterial chemoembolization (TACE).
  • - In a review of 784 HCC patients, those with higher albumin-skeletal muscle density scores (ADS) had better overall survival rates, particularly in viral-induced HCC cases, compared to those with lower ADS.
  • - The findings suggest that low ADS is a significant predictor of poorer survival in patients with viral-induced HCC, while muscle quality parameters do not impact survival in cases of alcohol-induced or non-alcoholic steatohepatitis-induced HCC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: In uveal melanoma patients, short-term evaluation of treatment response to hepatic artery infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) using the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) 1.1 criteria is challenging due to the diffuse metastatic spread. As liver enlargement can frequently be observed, this study aims to compare RECIST 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: To assess the technical feasibility, safety, and clinical success rate of trans-arterial embolization (TAE) as an emergency treatment for acute lower gastrointestinal bleeding (LGIB).

Materials And Methods: Consecutive patients who received urgent TAE due to active LGIB at five academic centers in Germany were retrospectively analyzed. LGIB was confirmed and localized using contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) or endoscopy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cystic fibrosis bone disease (CFBD) is a common comorbidity in adult people with cystic fibrosis (pwCF), resulting in an increased risk of bone fractures. This study evaluated the capacity of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted low-dose chest CT (LDCT) opportunistic screening for detecting low bone mineral density (BMD) in adult pwCF. In this retrospective single-center study, 65 adult pwCF (mean age 30.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Non-specific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) is an interstitial lung disease that can result in end-stage fibrosis. We investigated the influence of body composition and pulmonary fat attenuation volume (CTpfav) on overall survival (OS) in NSIP patients.

Methods: In this retrospective single-center study, 71 NSIP patients with a median age of 65 years (interquartile range 21.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • In this study, researchers looked at how two types of liver cancer cells in uveal melanoma patients affected their survival after getting a type of chemotherapy called HAIC.
  • They studied 60 patients and found that most had the epithelioid pattern of cells, while fewer had the spindle cell pattern.
  • The results showed that there was no big difference in how long patients lived after treatment, no matter which type of cancer cells they had.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Regular disease monitoring in cystic fibrosis patients is essential, and this study compared low-dose high-resolution (LD-HR) CT scans using photon-counting CT (PCCT) versus energy-integrating detector system CT (EID-CT).
  • The results showed that PCCT reduced radiation exposure by about 42% and had superior image quality and sharpness compared to EID-CT.
  • Ultimately, PCCT proved to be a more advantageous method for monitoring cystic fibrosis due to its lower radiation dose and improved imaging capabilities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is the most common interstitial lung disease, with a median survival time of 2 to 5 years. The focus of this study is to establish a novel imaging biomarker.

Materials And Methods: In this study, 79 patients (19% female) with a median age of 70 years were studied retrospectively.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background & Aims: Body composition assessment (BCA) parameters have recently been identified as relevant prognostic factors for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Herein, we aimed to investigate the role of BCA parameters for prognosis prediction in patients with HCC undergoing transarterial chemoembolization (TACE).

Methods: This retrospective multicenter study included a total of 754 treatment-naïve patients with HCC who underwent TACE at six tertiary care centers between 2010-2020.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Poor nutritional status negatively impacts lung function and survival in people with cystic fibrosis (pwCF).
  • A study using deep-learning analyzed body composition changes in 66 adults with CF before and after elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor (ETI) therapy, finding significant increases in adipose tissue but only minimal improvements in muscle ratio.
  • The results indicate that ETI therapy mainly influences fat tissue, particularly in underweight patients, which may inform future nutritional strategies for managing CF.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is characterized by progressive and irreversible airflow limitation, with individual body composition influencing disease severity. Severe emphysema worsens symptoms through hyperinflation, which can be relieved by bronchoscopic lung volume reduction (BLVR). To investigate how body composition, assessed through CT scans, impacts outcomes in emphysema patients undergoing BLVR.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of an AI-assisted fracture detection program on radiology residents' performance in pediatric and adult trauma patients and assess its implications for residency training. : This study, conducted retrospectively, included 200 radiographs from participants aged 1 to 95 years (mean age: 40.7 ± 24.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Malignant triton tumours (MTTs) are rare but aggressive subtypes of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumours (MPNSTs) with a high recurrence rate and 5-year survival of 14%. Systematic imaging data on MTTs are scarce and mainly based on single case reports. Therefore, we aimed to identify typical CT and MRI features to improve early diagnosis rates of this uncommon entity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A novel software, DiffTool, was developed in-house to keep track of changes made by board-certified radiologists to preliminary reports created by residents and evaluate its impact on radiological hands-on training. Before (t) and after (t) the deployment of the software, 18 residents (median age: 29 years; 33% female) completed a standardized questionnaire on professional training. At t the participants were also requested to respond to three additional questions to evaluate the software.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Fibroblast activation protein α (FAPα) is expressed at high levels in several types of tumors. Here, we report the expression pattern of FAPα in solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) and its potential use as a radiotheranostic target. We analyzed FAPα messenger RNA and protein expression in biopsy samples from SFT patients using immunohistochemistry and multiplexed immunofluorescence.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: The study aimed to develop the open-source body and organ analysis (BOA), a comprehensive computed tomography (CT) image segmentation algorithm with a focus on workflow integration.

Methods: The BOA combines 2 segmentation algorithms: body composition analysis (BCA) and TotalSegmentator. The BCA was trained with the nnU-Net framework using a dataset including 300 CT examinations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The fibroblast activation protein (FAP) is highly expressed on carcinoma-associated fibroblasts in the stroma of pancreatic cancer and thus is a promising target for imaging and therapy. Preliminary data on PET imaging with radiolabeled FAP inhibitors (FAPIs) demonstrate superior tumor detection. Here we assess the accuracy of FAP-directed PET in patients with pancreatic cancer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF