Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

In Vivo Cellular Mri In Experimental Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury, Laura E. Gonzalez-Lara

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Spinal cord injury (SCI) remains one of the most devastating conditions in medicine; it is a complex medical condition with no cure currently available. Inflammation plays an important role in SCI as it can have both beneficial and detrimental effects. Cell therapy has emerged as a promising treatment for SCI due to the potential for stem cells, including multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC), for tissue regeneration and immunomodulation of the inflammatory cascade after the initial trauma. However, there are still important, unresolved questions regarding cell therapy that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can help to address by producing high-resolution images with …

Characterization Of Quadriceps Neuromuscular Function In Knee Osteoarthritis, Michael James Berger

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

PURPOSE: The purpose of this thesis was to characterize quadriceps neuromuscular dysfunction in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Concerns pertaining to study design in this patient population (e.g. disease severity criteria and muscle imaging outcome measures) were also addressed.

METHODS: Five studies were undertaken using data acquired from volunteers recruited at the local institution and from participants in the public source dataset of the Osteoarthritis Initiative (http://oai.epi-ucsf.org/datarelease/). Clinical disease severity was evaluated with the Western Ontario and McMaster Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC). Radiographic severity was evaluated with Kellgren-Lawrence Grading (KLG). Quadriceps muscle isometric strength and isotonic power were measured …

From Isolated Tumour Cells To Overt Lymph Node Metastases: Biological And Imaging Studies On The Development Of Experimental Lymph Node Metastases, Michael M. Lizardo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Metastatic colonization and establishment of overt lymph node (LN) tumours indicates poor prognosis for cancer patients. However, the basic biology that influences the development of LN metastasis is poorly understood due to the lack of basic animal models. The following work provides a new lymph node experimental metastasis assay (LEMA) that permits the assessment of tumour cell fate after they arrest in draining LNs. In using this new model, we discovered that only 8% of the tumour cells that arrive in the LN are successful in forming overt tumours. This work also explored the use of imaging approaches to monitor …