• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.975-984
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• 2022

Since a linear transducer has an area of interest equal to the length of the transducer, the area of interest can be expanded using the virtual convex function installed in the device.However, it was thought that the change in the direction of the ultrasonic sound velocity according to the change in the visual area of interest would affect the image quality, so this was objectively confirmed. For this study, image evaluation and SNR·CNR of the phantom for ultrasound quality control were measured. As a result, in the phantom image evaluation, both images were able to identify structures in functional resolution, grayscale, and dynamic range. However, it was confirmed that the standard image was excellent in the reproducibility of the size and shape of the structure. As a result of SNR·CNR evaluation, SNR·CNR of most trapezoidal images was low, except for structures at specific locations. In addition, through the statistical analysis graph, it was further confirmed that the SNR and CNR for each depth decreased as the size of the cystic structure decreased. Through this study, it was confirmed that the use of the function has the advantage of providing a wide visual area of interest, but it has an effect on the image quality. Therefore, when using the virtual convex function, it is judged that the examiner should use it in an appropriate situation and conduct various studies to acquire high-quality images and to improve the understanding and proficiency of the equipment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.427-433
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• 2018

Because of the expectation of the non-invasive treatment effect, Various studies on the treatment of varicose veins using focused ultrasound are reported. In this study, the bio-tissue phantom and tissue equivalent phantom that can be applied to estimation of ultrasonic varicose veins treatment effect. Each phantom was evaluated for its usefulness by evaluating the acoustic characteristics and the shrinkage rate according to the ultrasonic irradiation. A multi-layer structure phantom with three layers of skin, fat, and muscle was constructed considering the structure of the tissue where the varicose veins occurred. The materials constituting each layer were made to have characteristics similar to human body. In addition, the multi-layered phantoms with blood vessel mimic tube, with bovine blood vessel, and with animal tissue were fabricated. The degree of shrinkage of blood vessel mimic material and vascular tissue according to ultrasonic irradiation was evaluated using B-mode image. As the results of this study, it was thought that the proposed phantom could be used effectively in the evaluation of ultrasonic varicose veins treatment. In addition, it is thought that these phantoms could be applied to the development of varicose vein treatment device using the focused ultrasound and the verification of the therapeutic effect.

• Journal of the Korean Academy of Clinical Electrophysiology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.13-25
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• 2006

This study aims to suggest clinical basis of physical therapy of neuromuscular system complication in type diabetic patients through a variety II of analysis methods including echogenicity using ultrasound image and measurement of peripheral nerve function to their neuromuscular system and provide basic materials for preparing evaluation of physical therapy and intervention program. Subjects of this study were 75 type II diabetic patients between 40 and 80 years old and it obtained the following results through echogenisity and function of peripheral nerve. Incidence of neuropathy in type II diabetes was 55.8% in men and 53.1% in women, and total incidence of neuropathy was 54.7%. Echogenicity of patients with neuropathy was significantly increased compared to that of patients with neuropahty. It was also found that there were correlations between function of peripheral nerve and echogenicity of tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius muscle. In addition, it will be important for physical therapists to divide type II diabetic patients into neuropathy and myopathy and interpret and approach changes of neuro-muscular system from comprehensive side.

• The Journal of Korean Orthopaedic Ultrasound Society
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.26-30
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• 2015

There are many traumatic foot and ankle problems in orthopaedic fields. Though it is not life-threatening problems, a delay in accurate diagnosis and treatments can danger limb function and therefore correct diagnosis can prevent long-term complications. Achilles tendon rupture is relatively common injury for active sports people. Ultrasonography is cost-effective, irradiation -free, effective for evaluation of soft tissues and dynamic analysis. It has been growing importance in Achilles tendon rupture. Ultrasonography is a diagnostic tool in Achilles tendon rupture. Physical examination and patient history is needed to diagnose Achilles tendon without image, but it is missed up by 20% in private clinic. Discontinuity of normal fibrillar architecture seen on an ultrasonographic image is diagnostic for Achilles tendon rupture, and can be accentuated by the performance of dorsi-flexion and plantar flexion, while observing in real time. And ultrasonography is a reliable method for serial observation after surgical treatment or conservative treatment.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.19B no.3
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• pp.201-208
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• 2012

Accurately segmenting lumen border in intravascular ultrasound images (IVUS) is very important to study vascular wall architecture for diagnosis of the cardiovascular diseases. After each of IVUS image is transformed to a polar coordinated image, initial points are detected using wavelet transform. Then, lumen border is initialized as the set of important points using non parametric probability density function and smoothing function by removing outlier initial points occurred by noises and artifacts. Finally, polynomial curve fitting is applied to obtain real lumen border using filtered important points. The evaluation of proposed method was performed with related method and the proposed method produced accurate lumen contour detection when compared to another method in most types of IVUS images.

• Ultrasonography
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 2013

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to establish the methodology regarding synthesis of ultrasound contrast agent imaging, and to evaluate the characteristics of the synthesized ultrasound contrast agents, including size or degradation interval and image quality. Materials and Methods: The ultrasound contrast agent, composed of liposome and SF6, was synthesized from the mixture solution of $21{\mu}mol$ DPPC (1, 2-Dihexadecanoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, $C_{40}H_{80}NO_8P$), $9{\mu}mol$ cholesterol, $1.9{\mu}mol$ of DCP (Dihexadecylphosphate, $[CH_3(CH_2)_{15}O]_2P(O)OH$), and chloroform. After evaporation in a warm water bath and drying during a period of 12-24 hours, the contrast agent was synthesized by the sonication process by addition of buffer and SF6 gas. The size of the contrast agent was controlled by use of either extruder or sonication methods. After synthesis of contrast agents, analysis of the size distribution of the bubbles was performed using dynamic light scattering measurement methods. The degradation curve was also evaluated by changes in the number of contrast agents via light microscopy immediate, 12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48 hours, 60 hours, 72 hours, and 84 hours after synthesis. For evaluation of the role as an US contrast agent, the echogenicity of the synthesized microbubble was compared with commercially available microbubbles (SonoVue, Bracco, Milan, Italy) using a clinical ultrasound machine and phantom. Results: The contrast agents were synthesized successfully using an evaporation-drying-sonication method. The majority of bubbles showed a mean size of 154.2 nanometers, and they showed marked degradation 24 hours after synthesis. ANOVA test revealed a significant difference among SonoVue, synthesized contrast agent, and saline (p < 0.001). Although no significant difference was observed between SonoVue and the synthesized contrast agent, difference in echogenicity was observed between synthesized contrast agent and saline (p < 0.01). Conclusion: We could synthesize ultrasound contrast agents using an evaporation-drying-sonication method. On the basis of these results, many prospective types of research, such as anticancer drug delivery, gene delivery, including siRNA or microRNA, targeted molecular imaging, and targeted therapy can be performed.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.6
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• pp.879-884
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• 2012

Photoacoustic Tomography (PAT) is a promising medical imaging modality by reason of its particularity. It combines optical imaging contrast of optical imaging with the spatial resolution of ultrasound imaging and can demonstrate change of biological feature in an image. For that reason, many studies are in progress to apply this technic for diagnosis. But, real-time PAT system is necessary to confirm a biological reaction induced by external stimulation immediately. Thus, we developed a real-time PAT system using linear array transducer and self-developed Data acquisition board (DAQ) resources, To evaluate the feasibility and performance of our proposed system, two type of phantom test were also performed. As a result of those experiments, the proposed system shows enough performance and confirm its usefulness.

• Korean Journal of Digital Imaging in Medicine
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2011

Now a days, there's many change over for PACS among the most of hospital and it standard for DICOM 3.0. These kind of using of DICOM 3.0 improves increasing of medical imaging exchange and service for patient. However, there's some problems of compatibility caused during carry out CD and DVD from hospital. For this reason, this thesis analyzed patients image targeting those storages requested to hospitals in Seoul by using Validation Toolkit which is recommended from KFDA. The analyze type is like this. Make 100 data, total 500, each of MRI CT Plain x-ray Ultrasound PET-CT images and analyzed type of error occurred and loyalty of information. If express percentage of error occurred statistically, we can get a result as follows MRI 5%, Plain x-ray 11%, CT 18%, US 25%, PET-CT 30%. The reson why percentage of error occurred in PET-CT is because of imperfective support and we could notice that we weren't devoted to information. Even though, PET-CT showed highest percentage of error occurred, currently DICOM data improved a lot compare to past. Moreover, it should be devoted to rule of IHE TOOL or DICOM. In conclusion, we can help radiographer to analyze information of image by providing clues for solving primary problem and further more, each of PACS company or equipment company can enhance fidelity for following standard of image information through realizing the actual problem during transfer of image information.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.375-379
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• 2016

Increasing fat tissue of obese people, increases the rate of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndromes and dyslipidemia. An increase in the focal tissue of pancreas is a known risk factor of these diseases. Although there exists sufficient research on the diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer, studies have been done on fatty pancreas. In this study, based on ultrasound imaging and using a texture characteristic of GLCM, fatty pancreas was divided into three categories: mild, moderate and severe. We compared and analyzed the three groups was by Pancreatic ultrasonography and body characteristics, serological tests, pressure and the degree of arteriosclerosis, against normal control group. The following parameters of control and test groups were measured: WC (waist circumference),BMI (body mass index), TC (total cholesterol), TG (triglyceride), HDL-C (High-density lipoprotein cholesterol) and LDL-C (Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol), SBP (systolic blood pressure), BST (Blood Sugar Test) and aortic PWV (pulse wave velocity). We observed the values correspondingly increasing fat deposition. However, ABI (Ankle Brachial pressure index) stenosis and HDL-C levels decreased with increasing fat deposit (p <0.05); a drop in these parameters are known to be harmful to the human body. The difference in texture characteristics between normal control group and pancreatic fatty group (mild, moderate, and severe) was statistically confirmed. Ultrasound imaging of pancreatic steatosis categorized the disease as mild, moderate and severe based on the characteristic texture. In conclusion, we observed on increase in metabolic syndrome, dyslipidemia, and arteriosclerosis, proportional to the degree of pancreatic fat deposition. The escalation of these diseases was confirmed and was directly related with predictors of cardiovascular diseases.

• Korean Circulation Journal
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.30-39
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• 2024

Background and Objectives: Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) evaluation of coronary artery morphology is based on the lumen and vessel segmentation. This study aimed to develop an automatic segmentation algorithm and validate the performances for measuring quantitative IVUS parameters. Methods: A total of 1,063 patients were randomly assigned, with a ratio of 4:1 to the training and test sets. The independent data set of 111 IVUS pullbacks was obtained to assess the vessel-level performance. The lumen and external elastic membrane (EEM) boundaries were labeled manually in every IVUS frame with a 0.2-mm interval. The Efficient-UNet was utilized for the automatic segmentation of IVUS images. Results: At the frame-level, Efficient-UNet showed a high dice similarity coefficient (DSC, 0.93±0.05) and Jaccard index (JI, 0.87±0.08) for lumen segmentation, and demonstrated a high DSC (0.97±0.03) and JI (0.94±0.04) for EEM segmentation. At the vessel-level, there were close correlations between model-derived vs. experts-measured IVUS parameters; minimal lumen image area (r=0.92), EEM area (r=0.88), lumen volume (r=0.99) and plaque volume (r=0.95). The agreement between model-derived vs. expert-measured minimal lumen area was similarly excellent compared to the experts' agreement. The model-based lumen and EEM segmentation for a 20-mm lesion segment required 13.2 seconds, whereas manual segmentation with a 0.2-mm interval by an expert took 187.5 minutes on average. Conclusions: The deep learning models can accurately and quickly delineate vascular geometry. The artificial intelligence-based methodology may support clinicians' decision-making by real-time application in the catheterization laboratory.