This simple acquisition, evaluating the amount of fat, is another quick and easy method that helps solve the conundrum of spinal fractures: benign or malignant?

Key Points:

• Chemical-shift-encoding based water-fat MRI can reliably assess vertebral bone marrow PDFF
• PDFF is significantly higher in acute benign than in malignant VCFs
• PDFF provides high accuracy for differentiating acute benign from malignant VCFs

When facing a lung nodule, it is always difficult to predict if it will turn into an aggressive tumor or remain indolent. Radiomics may help you!

Key point:

• Based on radiomics features, a signature is established to differentiate adenocarcinoma in situ and minimally invasive adenocarcinoma from invasive lung adenocarcinoma.

Authors: Yunlang She, Lei Zhang, Huiyuan Zhu, Chenyang Dai, Dong Xie, Huikang Xie, Wei Zhang, Lilan Zhao, Liling Zou, Ke Fei, Xiwen Sun, Chang Chen

Authors: Thomas Stiermaier, Torben Lange, Amedeo Chiribiri, Christian Möller, Tobias Graf, Christina Villnow, Uwe Raaz, Adriana Villa, Johannes T. Kowallick, Joachim Lotz, Gerd Hasenfuß, Holger Thiele, Andreas Schuster, Ingo Eitel

Breast scintigraphy is another tool which is not so commonly used in a daily routine. However, this paper shows that it has merit in characterizing malignant lesions, and we should certainly be aware of its benefit.

Key points:

• The feature analysis of BSGI uptake is useful in predicting malignancy.
• Irregular shape was predictive of malignancy in mass uptake.
• Linear/ductal distribution was predictive of malignancy in non-mass uptake.

Authors:
Eun Kyoung Choi, Jooyeon Jamie Im, Chang Suk Park, Yong-An Chung, Kijun Kim, Jin Kyoung Oh

There is increasing evidence that muscles are indicators of good health. There are several methods aimed at evaluating quantity and quality of muscular mass; US is another one, simple and efficient. See also the editorial by Sconfienza in the same issue, showing how sarcopenia will become a major concern, even for the smartphone market!

Key points:

• Speed of sound ultrasound: a novel technique to identify sarcopenia in seniors.
• Measurements were fast and well tolerated using a standard ultrasound machine.
• The novel technique shows potential for sarcopenia quantification.

Authors: Sergio J. Sanabria, Katharina Martini, Gregor Freystätter, Lisa Ruby, Orcun Goksel, Thomas Frauenfelder, Marga B. Rominger

Immunotherapy has been a major step forward in the treatment of metastatic melanoma. Imaging with texture analysis may now contribute to a better evaluation of overall survival.

Key points:

• Pretreatment skewness at coarse texture scale in metastases from malignant melanoma was an independent predictor of overall survival and progression-free survival.
• Skewness values above −0.55 at coarse texture scale were significantly associated with both lower OS and lower PFS after administration of pembrolizumab.
• In patients with metastatic MM, texture analysis performed on pretreatment CT may act as a useful tool to select the best candidates for pembrolizumab therapy.

Authors: Carole Durot, Sébastien Mulé, Philippe Soyer, Aude Marchal, Florent Grange, Christine Hoeffel