• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• 제78권2호
• /
• pp.64-71
• /
• 2015

Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) persists as a great public health problem in Korea. Increases in the overall age of the population and the rise of drug-resistant TB have reinforced the need for rapid diagnostic improvements and new modalities to detect TB and drug-resistant TB, as well as to improve TB control. Standard guidelines and recent advances for diagnosing pulmonary TB are summarized in this article. An early and accurate diagnosis of pulmonary TB should be established using chest X-ray, sputum microscopy, culture in both liquid and solid media, and nucleic acid amplification. Chest computed tomography, histopathological examination of biopsy samples, and new molecular diagnostic tests can be used for earlier and improved diagnoses, especially in patients with smear-negative pulmonary TB or clinically-diagnosed TB and drug-resistant TB.

• 대한방사선기술학회지:방사선기술과학
• /
• 제16권1호
• /
• pp.41-55
• /
• 1993

Recently, various screen film system have been introduced in diagnostic radiology. There are two kinds of screen film system : blue emitting $CaWO_4$ screen has been largely used in these days. However, it tends to be changed to use green emitting $Gd_2O_2S$ : Tb screen. In this study, photographic characteristics of $CaWO_4$ and $Gd_2O_2S$ : Tb screen were investigated with luminescence, spectroscopy. The morphology of $CaWO_4$ and $Gd_2O_2S$ : Tb were also observed by using scanning electron microscope. The result obtained were as follows : 1. There was small difference in the thickness of phosphor layers for the front and back screen of blue emitting system, but little difference in those of green emitting system. 2. There was no difference in the size of phosphor particles between the front and back screen for each screen. However, the particle size was different for the various kinds of screens. 3. The shape of phosphor particle was round with many faces for all the screens. 4. In the exposure of X-ray with the same intensity, luminescent intensity of a green emitting system was $6{\sim}7$ times larger than that of a blue emitting system. 5. The thickness of phosphor layers does not affect on the sensitivity of the screens exposed by X-ray.

• 대한방사선기술학회지:방사선기술과학
• /
• 제16권1호
• /
• pp.67-80
• /
• 1993

Recently, a large number of new screen-film systems have become available for use in diagnostic radiology. These new screens are made of materials generally known as rare-earth phosphors which have high x-ray absorption and high x-ray to light conversion efficiency compared to calcium tungstate phosphors. The major advantage of these new systesms is reduction of patient exposure due to their high speed or high sensitivity. However, a system with excessively high speed can result in a significant degradation of radiographic image quality. Therefore, th speed is important parameters for users of these system. Our aim of in this was to determine accurately and precisely the absolute speed and relative speeds of both new and conventional screen-film system. We determined the absolute speed in condition of BRH phantom beam qulity and the relative speed were measured by a split-screen technique in condition of BRH and ANSI phantom beam qulity. The absolute and the relative speed were determined for 8 kinds of screen-4 kinds of film in regular system and 7 kinds of screen-7 kinds of film in ortho system. In this study we could know the New Rx, T-MAT G has the highest film speed, also know Green system's stndard deviation of relative speed larger than blue system. It was realized that there were no relationship between the absolute speed and the blue system. It was realized that there were no relationship between the absolute speed and the relative speed in ortho or regular system.

• 한국의학물리학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국의학물리학회 2003년도 제27회 추계학술대회
• /
• pp.69-69
• /
• 2003

Flat panel based digital radiography (DR) systems have recently become useful and important in the field of diagnostic radiology. For DRs with amorphous silicon photosensors, CsI(TI) is normally used as the scintillator, which produces visible light corresponding to the absorbed energy. The visible light photons are converted into an electric signal in the amorphous silicon photodiode. In order to produce good quality images, we need to understand the detailed behavior of DR detectors in radiation. We, therefore, investigated the relationship between DR outputs and X -ray in terms of absorbed energy, using the SPEC-78, X-ray energy spectrum model. We calculated the total filtration of X-ray equipment measuring air exposure and this value was used in the calculation of absorbed energy. The relationship between DR output and the absorbed energy of the X-ray was obtained by matching the absorbed energy with pixel values of real images under various conditions. It was found that the relationship between these two values was almost linear. The results were verified using phantoms made of water and aluminium. The pixel value of the phantom image was estimated and compared with previous results under various conditions. The estimated pixel value coincided with the results, although the effect of scattered photons introduced some errors.

• 대한디지털의료영상학회논문지
• /
• 제10권2호
• /
• pp.23-31
• /
• 2008

Computed radiography(CR) has been widely used in the field of diagnostic radiography since digital X-ray image was introduced. The imaging performance of CR system was studied by analyzing the digital image data of the CR images which are the outcomes of the whole imaging system composed of image plate(IP), laser digitizer, analoge-digital convertor, and a given image processing unit. In this study, we used a conventional CR system made by Agfa. From the flat field image of 150$\times$150 image pixels, signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) was calculated. SNR of the CR image increases in proportion to logarithm value of the X-ray exposure irradiated on the IP. SNR is less than about 6 at the exposure below 0.2mR and is more than 10 at the exposure above 0.54mR. In our study, most of images obtained by the smaller exposures less than 2.0mR can not be readable. In general, the minimum value of the SNR ranges from 3 to 5. We obtained modulation transfer function(MTF) by analyzing the bar pattern image which was made under conditions as follows: X-ray tube potential was 55kVp, the IP exposure was 0.54 mR, and the distance between X-ray source to IP was 2m, where bar pattern was located on the IP. MTF is 23% at 2.5lp/mm spatial frequency. Provided that the MTF of noise equivalent modulation is 10%, the CR system has the limiting spatial resolution of 3.2lp/mm. If the image sharpness is evaluated by the spatial frequency where MTF is 50%. the corresponding spatial frequency is 0.5$\sim$0.75lp/mm. MTFA(Modulation Transfer Function Area) is 1.0lp/mm. Compared with the Fuji CR whose MTFA is 1.1lp/mm, Agfa CR in this study shows almost same MTFA performance.

• 대한후두음성언어의학회지
• /
• 제19권1호
• /
• pp.43-46
• /
• 2008

Background and Objectives : Clinical suspicion and appropriate diagnostic procedures are essential for the timely management of extrapulmonary type of mycobacterial disease. In the hope of suggesting a suitable guideline for the early diagnosis of laryngeal tuberculosis, the authors reviewed their clinical pathways and the characteristics of patients with laryngeal tuberculosis who were managed in the recent 10 years at a single tertiary referral hospital, Samsung Medical Center. Subjects and Method : Retrospective chart review was performed for the 25 adult patients with laryngeal tuberculosis. Among 25 cases, 12 were pathologically confirmed by laryngeal biopsy and the other 13 were clinically diagnosed by cumulative clinical information; definite laryngitis on laryngoscopy, positive AFB (acid fast bacillus) smear/culture or active pulmonary tuberculosis on chest X-ray, and substantial response to anti-tuberculosis medication. Results : Chest X-ray revealed active pulmonary tuberculosis in 72% of patients (N=18/25). Sputum AFB smear/culture was positive in 95% of all tested patients (N=21/22) and in 100% of the tested patients who have stable or no evidence of pulmonary tuberculosis (N=5/5). All patients except one who had coexisting laryngeal malignancy showed considerable improvement in their subjective symptoms and laryngeal findings within the first 2 months of anti-tuberculosis medications and they achieved complete response on subsequent sputum studies, chest X-ray and laryngeal findings after $7.0{\pm}2.3$ months of the medications. Conclusion : We suggest that chest X-ray and sputum AFB smear/culture to be the first step of work-up for the patients having laryngeal tuberculosis in suspicion since laryngeal tuberculosis is largely associated with active pulmonary tuberculosis and/or sputum AFB study offers high yield even in case of primary laryngeal tuberculosis. However laryngeal biopsy must be considered in case showing unsatisfactory response to the anti-tuberculosis medication for more than 2 months.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
• /
• 제38권1호
• /
• pp.49-56
• /
• 2008

Purpose: Diagnostic estimation of destruction and formation of bone has the typical limit according to capacity of x-ray generator and image detector. So the aim of this study was to find out how much it can reproduce the shape and the density of bone in the case of using recently developed dental type of cone beam computed tomography, and which image is applied by new detector and mathematic calculation. Materials and Methods: Cone beam computed tomography (PSR 9000N, Asahi Roentgen Ind. Co., Ltd., Japan) and soft x-ray radiography were executed on dry mandible that was already decalcified during 5 hours, 10 hours, 15 hours, 20 hours, and 25 hours. Estimating and comparing of those came to the following results. Results: The change of inferior border of mandible and anterior border of ramus in the region of cortical bone was observed between first 5 and 10 hours of decalcification. The reproduction of shape and density in the region of cortical bone and cancellous bone can be hardly observed at cone beam computed tomography compared with soft x-ray radiography. The difference of decrease of bone density according to hours of decalcification increase wasn't reproduced at cone beam computed tomography compared with soft x-ray radiography. Conclusion: CBCT images revealed higher spatial resolution. However, contrast resolution in region of low contrast sensitivity is the inferiority of images' property.

• 대한방사선기술학회지:방사선기술과학
• /
• 제16권2호
• /
• pp.27-38
• /
• 1993

To investigate relationships between image guality and exposure dose, Chest X-ray films were evaluated for the following points:how much scattered radiation can affect reduction in image quality and can be permissible diagnostically? For this purpose using a test charts and Burger's phantoms. The visual evaluation of their X-ray films and the measurements of scattered radiation were carried out. The dose of scattered radiation ranging from 20 to 25% was found to be for nothing in any diagnostic obstacle. In this range, surface doses were low of 17, 21, and $25{\mu}Gy$ for The thickness of the chest of 15, 20 and 25 cm respectively. Comparison of these high voltage X-ray films with low voltage ones showed a surface dose rate of 1:11.7. Therefore, X-ray quality, photosensitive materials(film and screen) and grid should be selected very carefully for the purpose of reduction in exposure dose.

• 대한방사선기술학회지:방사선기술과학
• /
• 제46권6호
• /
• pp.543-551
• /
• 2023

In this study, the aim was to assess the shielding performance of different 3D printing materials, specifically those produced using FDM, SLA, and CJP methods, with a focus on their application as shielding devices in clinical settings. Additionally, the weight of lead shielding materials can evoke reluctance in pediatric patients undergoing X-ray imaging. A total of 12 materials were printed using their respective 3D printers. These materials were then subjected to X-ray testing using diagnostic X-ray equipment and an exposure meter. The goal was to evaluate their shielding capabilities in comparison to 1 mm lead. The results of this evaluation revealed that VisiJet PXL-Pastel, produced using the CJP method, exhibited the highest shielding performance. Therefore, VisiJet PXL-Pastel by CJP method was selected for the creation of a shielding device designed for pediatric reproductive organs. Subsequent tests demonstrated that both the newly created shielding device and conventional lead shielding equipment achieved the same maximum shielding rate at 50 kVp. Specifically, the shielding rate for the 3D printed device was measured at 84.53%, while the conventional lead shielding equipment, categorized as Apron1 (85.74%), Apron2 (99.98%), and Apron3 (99.04%), demonstrated similar performance. In conclusion, the CJP-produced VisiJet PXL-Pastel material showcased excellent radiation shielding capabilities, allowing for anatomical observations of the target organs and their surrounding structures in X-ray images. Furthermore, its lower weight in comparison to traditional lead shielding materials makes it a clinically practical and useful choice, particularly for pediatric applications.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제53권1호
• /
• pp.282-293
• /
• 2021

This paper examines gamma-ray shielding properties of SBC-Bx glass system with the chemical composition of 40SiO₂-10B₂O₃-xBaO-(45-x)CaO- yZnO- zMgO (where x = 0, 10, 20, 30, and 35 mol% and y = z = 6 mol%). Mass attenuation coefficient (µ/ρ) which is an essential parameter to study gamma-ray shielding properties was obtained in the photon energy range of 0.015-15 MeV using PHITS Monte Carlo code for the proposed glasses. The obtained results were compared with those calculated by WinXCOM program. Both the values of PHITS code and WinXCOM program were observed in very good agreement. The (µ/ρ values were then used to derive mean free path (MFP), electron density (N_eff), effective atomic number (Z_eff), and half value layer (HVL) for all the glasses involved. Additionally, G-P method was employed to estimate exposure buildup factor (EBF) for each glass in the energy range of 0.015-15 MeV up to penetration depths of 40 mfp. The results reveal that gamma-ray shielding effectiveness of the SBC-Bx glasses evolves with increasing BaO content in the glass sample. Such that SBC-B35 glass has superior shielding capacity against gamma-rays among the studied glasses. Gamma-ray shielding properties of SBC-B35 glass were compared with different conventional shielding materials, commercial glasses, and newly developed HMO glasse. Therefore, the investigated glasses have potential uses in gamma shielding applications.