• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.65-71
• /
• 2019

With regard to current Neck CT, Bismuth shielding boards are often being used to reduce exposure to superficial organs such as the thyroid. However, beam hardening often occurs near superficial organs with Bismuth shielding boards and variations in CT Number, Noise, and Uniformity values occur severely. This study looked into the usefulness of shielding boards made from aluminum and silicone that can be easily obtained and have good machinability by comparing them to the existing Bismuth shielding board. An Aluminum 7.3mm and a Silicone 21.5mm were made with shielding ratios similar to that of the Bismuth(0.06 mmPb). TLD (TLD-100) was placed on the thyroid area of the Phantom (RS-108T) and 5 doses were measured for each. To compare image quality, CT Number and Noise variations in axial images of the thyroid area in Neck CT images were compared. Also, variations in CT Number, Noise, and Uniformity were measured in the AAPM phantom images and compared. In the results, when thyroid doses for each shielding board were compared, the Bismuth shielding board showed a 14% reduction, the Silicone 21.5mm showed a 15% reduction, and the Aluminum 7.3mm showed a 13% reduction compared to the Non-Shield. Statistically, there were no significant differences in comparison with the Bismuth shielding board. In CT Number variations of thyroid area images, variations were largest for the Bismuth shielding board. With Uniformity evaluations of the AAPM phantom, the Bismuth shielding board was found unsuitable and the Aluminum 7.3mm and Silicone 21.5mm satisfied the acceptance criteria. Research results show that the Aluminum 7.3mm and Silicone 21.5mm have a similar shielding ratio to the high-priced Bismuth shielding board that is currently being used clinically and in comparison tests of CT Number attenuation coefficient variations, Noise, and Uniformity which are phantom image evaluation items, they proved to be better than Bismuth shielding boards. If various shielding boards are made using aluminum and silicone, sized appropriately for superficial organs, it would be useful in decreasing patient doses.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.39 no.3
• /
• pp.116-123
• /
• 2018

This study is a model experimental study using a phantom to propose an optimized brain CT scan protocol that can reduce the radiation dose of a patient and remain quality of image. We investigate the CT scan parameters of brain CT in clinical medical institutions and to measure the important parameters that determine the quality of CT images. We used 52 multislice spiral CT (SOMATOM Definition AS+, Siemens Healthcare, Germany). The scan parameters were tube voltage (kVp), tube current (mAs), scan time, slice thickness, pitch, and scan field of view (SFOV) directly related to the patient's exposure dose. The CT dose indicators were CTDIvol and DLP. The CT images were obtained while increasing the imaging conditions constantly from the phantom limit value (Q1) to the maximum value (Q4) for AAPM CT performance evaluation. And statistics analyzed with Pearson's correlation coefficients. The result of tube voltage that the increase in tube voltage proportionally increases the variation range of the CT number. And similar results were obtained in the qualitative evaluation of the CT image compared to the tube voltage of 120 kVp, which was applied clinically at 100 kVp. Also, the scan conditions were appropriate in the tube current range of 250 mAs to 350 mAs when the tube voltage was 100 kVp. Therefore, by applying the proposed brain CT scanning parameters can be reduced the radiation dose of the patient while maintaining quality of image.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
• /
• 2002.09a
• /
• pp.255-259
• /
• 2002

To reduce the uncertainty in the calibration of radiation beams, absorbed dose to water for high energy electrons is recommended as the standards and reference absorbed dose by AAPM Report no.51 and IAEA Technical Reports no.398. In these recommendations, water is, defined as the reference medium, however, the water substitute solid phantoms are discouraged. Nevertheless, when accurate chamber positioning in water is not possible, or when no waterproof chamber is available, their use is permitted at beam qualities R$\_$50/ < 4 g/cm$^2$ (E$\_$0/ < 10 MeV). For the electron dosimetry using solid phantom, a depth-scaling factor is used for the conversion of depth in solid phantoms to depth in water, and a fluence-scaling factor is used for the conversion of ionization chamber reading in plastic phantom to reading in water. In this work, the properties, especially depth-scaling factors c$\_$p1/ and fluence-scaling factors h$\_$pl/ of several commercially available water substitute solid phantoms were determined, and the electron dosimetry using these scaling method was evaluated. As a result, it is obviously that dose-distribution in solid phantom can be converted to appropriate dose-distribution in water by means of IAEA depth-scaling.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.44 no.3
• /
• pp.182-189
• /
• 2023

CT is a medical device that acquires medical images based on Attenuation coefficient of human organs related to X-rays. In addition, using this theory, it can acquire sagittal and coronal planes and 3D images of the human body. Then, CT is essential device for universal diagnostic test. But Exposure of CT scan is so high that it is regulated and managed with special medical equipment. As the special medical equipment, CT must implement quality control. In detail of quality control, Spatial resolution of existing phantom imaging tests, Contrast resolution and clinical image evaluation are qualitative tests. These tests are not objective, so the reliability of the CT undermine trust. Therefore, by applying an artificial intelligence classification model, we wanted to confirm the possibility of quantitative evaluation of the qualitative evaluation part of the phantom test. We used intelligence classification models (VGG19, DenseNet201, EfficientNet B2, inception_resnet_v2, ResNet50V2, and Xception). And the fine-tuning process used for learning was additionally performed. As a result, in all classification models, the accuracy of spatial resolution was 0.9562 or higher, the precision was 0.9535, the recall was 1, the loss value was 0.1774, and the learning time was from a maximum of 14 minutes to a minimum of 8 minutes and 10 seconds. Through the experimental results, it was concluded that the artificial intelligence model can be applied to CT implements quality control in spatial resolution and contrast resolution.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
• /
• v.33 no.1
• /
• pp.42-49
• /
• 2015

Purpose: In order to keep the acceptable level of the radiation oncology linear accelerators, it is necessary to apply a reliable quality assurance (QA) program. Materials and Methods: The QA protocols, published by authoritative organizations, such as the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), determine the quality control (QC) tests which should be performed on the medical linear accelerators and the threshold levels for each test. The purpose of this study is to increase the accuracy and precision of the selected QC tests in order to increase the quality of treatment and also increase the speed of the tests to convince the crowded centers to start a reliable QA program. A new method has been developed for two of the QC tests; optical distance indicator (ODI) QC test as a daily test and gantry angle QC test as a monthly test. This method uses an image processing approach utilizing the snapshots taken by the CCD camera to measure the source to surface distance (SSD) and gantry angle. Results: The new method of ODI QC test has an accuracy of 99.95% with a standard deviation of 0.061 cm and the new method for gantry angle QC has a precision of $0.43^{\circ}$. The automated proposed method which is used for both ODI and gantry angle QC tests, contains highly accurate and precise results which are objective and the human-caused errors have no effect on the results. Conclusion: The results show that they are in the acceptable range for both of the QC tests, according to AAPM task group 142.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.436-443
• /
• 2015

The purpose of this study was to develop a self-diagnostic linearity quality control techniques of computed tomography (CT) by using measured CT number values from the various concentrations of iodine contrast media (CM) is diluted with distilled water under each condition of the tube voltage. The equipment was used for four-channel MDCT, the iodine concentration were using 300 mgI/ml, 350 mgI/ml, 370 mgI/ml and 400mgI/ml. Dilution of CM in distilled water was increased by each 5% until the maximum CT number values were measured. We applied the tube voltages for 90 kVp, 120 kVp, 140 kVp. As a result, we was obtained to the nearest linearity as 0.993 of correlation coefficient between the iodinated CM from 5% to 25% in 400 mgI/ml and the CT number values by 90 kVp. In conclusion, the proposed self-diagnostic linearity quality assurance technique by using iodine CM can be utilized to replace the AAPM CT performance phantom.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.15 no.6
• /
• pp.869-875
• /
• 2021

The purpose of this study is to derive a formula for calculating the effective energy of an X-ray beam generated by a CT simulator. Under 90, 120, and 140 kVp X-ray beams, the CT number calibration insert part of the AAPM CT performance phantom was scanned 5 times with a CT simulator. The CT numbers of polyethylene, polystyrene, water, nylon, polycarbonate, and acrylic were measured for each CT slice image. The average value of CT number measured under a single tube voltage and the linear attenuation coefficients corresponding to each photon energy calculated from the data of the National Institute of Standards and Technology were linearly fitted. Among the obtained correlation coefficients, the photon energy having the maximum value was determined as the effective energy. In this way, the effective energy of the X-ray beam generated at each tube voltage was determined. By linearly fitting the determined effective energies(y) and tube voltages(x), y=0.33026x+30.80263 as an effective energy calculation formula was induced.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
• /
• v.19 no.1
• /
• pp.19-26
• /
• 2007

Purpose: To compare of the accuracy among various measurement procedures of HDR Brachytherapy, and to evaluate the clinical suitability and usefulness of alternative PMMA (polymethylmethacrylateplastics: $C_5H_8O_2$) plate phantom without any additional cost due to the purchase of measuring apparatus. Materials and Methods: We made a comparative study on three types of measuring systems: well type chamber, source calibration jig, and PMMA plate phantom. Farmer type chamber was used for source calibration jig method and PMMA plate phantom method. Measurement was done 5 times each in comparison with the measurement values from manufacturer. Measurement results from experiment were compared with that from the manufacturer which is offered with the source whenever a source is substituted by a new one and evaluate the accuracy of source activity. Results: As a consequence of Ir-192 source measurement using well type chamber, source calibration jig and PMMA plate phantom, RMS (Root Mean Square) values for the relative error are 0.6%, 1.57%, 2.1%, respectively, compared with the data from manufacturer. And the mean errors with standard deviation are given $-0.2{\pm}0.5%$, $0.97{\pm}1.23%$, $-0.89{\pm}1.87%$ respectively. Conclusion: From the results shown by the three types of measurement system (well type chamber, source calibration jig, and PMMA plate phantom), the measurement with well type chamber produced the best accuracy. It turns out that we can also use the alternative system of PMMA plate phantom clinically without purchasing any additional particular apparatus since the system does not exceed the recommendation of AAPM (American Association of Physicists in Medicine), which requires the error range of within ${\pm}5%$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
• /
• 2016.05a
• /
• pp.271-274
• /
• 2016

CT quality assurance imaging evaluation and enforcement as quantitative assessment by phantom image evaluation, assessment items include There are also contrasting the water attenuation coefficient, uniformity, noise, resolution, spatial resolution, 10mm slice thickness evaluation, contrast resolution, space for the resolution, the slice thickness evaluation, it is possible to estimate the error due to the evaluation by the subjective judgment of the tester, using a subjective error image processing program to be computed to minimize the objective evaluation. Basic recording conditions of the CT image quality control assessment is the same as special medical equipment quality control checks, the images were evaluated quantitatively using IMAGE J. For a CT attenuation coefficient, the uniformity, noise evaluation, were evaluated as CT quality control image the standard deviation of the measured value of the digital processing of image smaller and less noise uniform images than the, contrast and resolution assessment is the size of the diameter of a circle having a large the 1 inch, 0.75 inch, 0.5 inch quality if the diameter of the circle, was evaluated in the small circle in the near circle ellipse. Spatial resolution is evaluated by using a self-extracting features of an image processing program, all of the groups of members comprising the acceptance criteria to automatically extract, was evaluated to be very useful for the quantitative assessment. When CT image quality control assessment on the basis of the results such as the above, if using an image processing program to minimize the subjective judgment of the error evaluator and is determined more efficient than would be made quantitative evaluation.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
• /
• v.40 no.1
• /
• pp.15-23
• /
• 2010

Purpose : This study was designed to compare the effective doses from low-dose and standard-dose multi-detector CT (MDCT) scanning protocols and evaluate the image quality and the spatial resolution of the low-dose MDCT protocols for clinical use. Materials and Methods : 6-channel MDCT scanner (Siemens Medical System, Forschheim, Germany), was used for this study. Protocol of the standard-dose MDCT for the orthodontic analysis was 130 kV, 35 mAs, 1.25 mm slice width, 0.8 pitch. Those of the low-dose MDCT for orthodontic analysis and orthodontic surgery were 110 kV, 30 mAs, 1.25 mm slice width, 0.85 pitch and 110 kV, 45 mAs, 2.5 mm slice width, 0.85 pitch. Thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) were placed at 31 sites throughout the levels of adult female ART head and neck phantom. Effective doses were calculated according to ICRP 1990 and 2007 recommendations. A formalin-fixed cadaver and AAPM CT performance phantom were scanned for the evaluation of subjective image quality and spatial resolution. Results : Effective doses in ${\mu}Sv$ ($E_{2007}$) were 699.1, 429.4 and 603.1 for standard-dose CT of orthodontic treatment, low-dose CT of orthodontic analysis, and low-dose CT of orthodontic surgery, respectively. The image quality from the low-dose protocol were not worse than those from the standard-dose protocol. The spatial resolutions of both standard-dose and low-dose CT images were acceptable. Conclusion : From the above results, it can be concluded that the low-dose MDCT protocol is preferable in obtaining CT images for orthodontic analysis and orthodontic surgery.