• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.15-23
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• 1992

Background: The prognosis of lung cancer remains poor and early detection and curative surgery is still the most effective treatment for many. In the early detection of lung cancer, sputum cytology and simple chest x-ray are used, but both of these tests are far from being perfect. So we studied the characteristics of patients diagnosed as lung cancer without demonstrable mass lesion on simple chest x-ray to help in the early diagnosis of lung cancer. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study on 11 subjects who were diagnosed as lung cancer at Seoul National University Hospital between August 1986 and June 1989 and had no demonstrable mass lesion on simple chest x-rays. Results: Ten of 11 patients were male, 8 had a history of smoking, most frequent symptoms were sputum, cough, and hemoptysis, and 3 patients either had wheezing or stridor. In 3 of the cases, although there were no mass lesion, there were ill-defined infiltration, major fissure thickening, and fibrostreaky density mimiking tuberculosis where the tumor was eventually found and in one patient tumor was masked by a rib shadow. Also in one case, lateral chest film demonstrated a retrocardiac mass. Both bronchoscopy and computed tomogram were useful in the localization of the tumor. Seven of 11 had relatively early disease (less than StageII). Four of 11 are still alive without any evidence of recurrence between 2 and a half and 4 years after the operation. Conclusion: We conclude that in patients with respiratory symtoms in whom cancer cannot be ruled out, sputum cytology and lateral chest x-rays should be taken and that if necessary further studies like computed tomogram and bronchoscopy should be done to aid in the early diagnosis of lung cancer.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.177-185
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• 2006

Purpose: Purpose of this study is to synthesize $^{99m}Tc$-labeled transferrin for injection imaging and to compare it with $^{67}Ga$-titrate for the detection of infectious foci. Materials and methods: Succinimidyl 6-hydrazino-nicotinate hydrochloride-chitosan-transferrin (Transferrin) was synthesized and radiolabeled with $^{99m}Tc$. Labeling efficiencies of $^{99m}Tc$-Transferrin were determined at 10 min, 30 min, 1 hr, 2 hr, 4 hr and 8 hr. Biodistribution and imaging studies with $^{99m}Tc$-Transferrin and $^{67}Ga$-citrate were performed in a rat abscess model induced with approximately $2{\times}10^8$ colony forming unit of Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923. Results: Successful synthesis of Transferrin was confirmed by mass spectrometry. Labeling efficiency of $^{99m}Tc$-Transferrin was $96.2{\pm}0.7%,\;96.4{\pm}0.5%,\;96.6{\pm}1.0%,\;96.9{\pm}0.5%,\;97.0{\pm}0.7%\;and\;95.5{\pm}0.7%$ at 10 min, 30 min, 1 hr, 2 hr, 4 hr and 8 hr, respectively. The injected dose per tissue gram of $^{99m}Tc$-Transferrin was $0.18{\pm}0.01\;and\;0.18{\pm}0.01$ in the lesion and $0.05{\pm}0.01\;and\;0.04{\pm}0.01$ in the normal muscle, and lesion-to-normal muscle uptake ratio was $3.7{\pm}0.6\;and\;4.7{\pm}0.4$ at 30 min and 3 hr, respectively. On image, lesion-to-background ratio of $^{99m}Tc$-Transferrin was $2.18{\pm}0.03,\;2.56{\pm}0.11,\;3.08{\pm}0.18,\;3.77{\pm}0.17,\;4.70{\pm}0.45\;and\;5.59{\pm}0.40$ at 10 min, 30 min, 1 hr, 2 hr, 4 hr and 10 hr and those of $^{67}Ga$-citrate was $3.06{\pm}0.84,\;4.12{\pm}0.54\;and\;4.55{\pm}0.74 $ at 2 hr, 24 hr and 48 hr, respectively. Conclusion: Transferrin is successfully labeled with $^{99m}Tc$, and its labeling efficiency was higher than 95% and stable for 8 hours. $^{99m}Tc$-Transferrin scintigraphy showed higher image quality in shorter time compared to $^{67}Ga$-citrate image. $^{99m}Tc$-transferrin is supposed to be useful in the detection of the infectious foci.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.55-59
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• 2001

Purpose: Several studies of an endoscopic mucosal resection(EMR) have been reported, but reports about benign protruding lesions that arise at the scar of EMR for early gastric cancer (EGC) or a gastric adenoma are rare. The purpose of this study was to elucidate endoscopic and histological characteristics of benign protruding lesions which arise at the scar of an EMR for EGC and a gastric flat adenoma. Materials and Methods: In 101 lesions (73 gastric flat adenomas and 28 EGCs) from 96 patients, 16 lesions developed new protruding lesions that arose at the scar of the EMR. We retrospectively analyzed the endoscopic findings of initial and protruding lesions, and several other clinical factors (H. pylori infection, eradication therapy, and proton pump inhibitor (PPI) or H2-blocker use). Results: 1. The mean duration until detection of the protruding lesion was 8.9 months ($1.5\∼27$). Protruding lesions arose at the scar of the EMR in 1 of 28 EGCs ($3.6\%$) and from 15 of 73 gastric flat adenomas ($20.5\%$). All of the patients were men. 2. With respect to the endoscopic findings, the shapes of the protruding lesions were as follows: 10 Yamada (Y) I, 4 Y-II, 1 Y-III, and 1 flat lesion. Histological examination of the protruding lesions revealed regenerating hyperplasia in 5 lesions, intestinal metaplasia in 5, and both in 6. 3. The incidence of these lesions was higher in cases of tubular adenomas with focal high-grade dysplasia than in cases of tubular adenomas without dysplasia (p<0.05). 4. The incidence of H. pylori infection was higher in patients ($81.7\%$) who developed a protruding lesion than in those ($51.8\%$) who did not develop (p=0.029); also, the incidence of use of PPI was higher in those patients (p=0.045). However, eradication therapy for H. pylori and duration of use of PPI or H2-blocker showed no difference between groups. Conclusions: It may be possible that the potential hyperplasia that may reside in normal mucosa surrounding EGC or a gastric adenoma might awaken during the healing process of the EMR ulcer and develop to benign protruding lesions. And, H. pylori and PPI might also be related to the development of the protruding lesions.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.411-420
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• 2009

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the usefulness of $^{18}F$-FDG PET/CT with neck ultrasonography (neck US) in patients with recurrent, papillary thyroid cancer. Material and methods: This retrospective study (December 2006 to April 2008) enrolled sixty-one patients (ninety-one lesions) who underwent high-dose $^{131}I$-ablation therapy after total thyroidectomy, and evaluated recurred papillary thyroid cancer. All lesions were confirmed by histopathology and compared histopathologic findings to PET, PET/CT, and neck US findings. Results: In sixty-one patients (57 women, 4 men; age range, 24-81 years, mean 49 years; 61 papillary carcinomas), the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy of $^{18}F$-FDG PET/CT was 87.2%, 64.0%, 78.1% on a patient basis and 92.3%, 66.7%, 80.9% on a lesion basis, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy of $^{18}F$-FDG PET was 71.8% (p=0.03), 59.0% (p=1.00), 67.2% (p=0.03) on a patient basis and 78.8% (p<0.01), 64.1% (p=1.00), 72.5% (p=0.02) on a lesion basis, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy of neck US was 71.1% (p=0.07), 52.2% (p=0.75), 63.9% (p=0.05) on a patient basis and 71.2% (p<0.01), 61.5% (p=1.00), 67.0% (p=0.06) on a lesion basis, respectively. Combined $^{18}F$-FDG PET/CT with neck US improved the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy to 94.7% (p=0.50), 82.6% (p=0.13), 90.2% (p=0.03) on a patient basis and 96.2% (p=0.50), 89.7% (p<0.01), 93.4% (p<0.01) on a lesion basis, respectively. Conclusion: $^{18}F$-FDG PET/CT demonstrated significantly higher sensitivity than neck US for the detection of recurred papillary thyroid cancer lesions. Furthermore, combined $^{18}F$-FDG PET/CT with neck US showed more improved sensitivity, specificity, accuracy for diagnosis of recurrent papillary thyroid cancer.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.83 no.2
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• pp.344-359
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• 2022

Purpose To develop a denoising convolutional neural network-based image processing technique and investigate its efficacy in diagnosing breast cancer using low-dose mammography imaging. Materials and Methods A total of 6 breast radiologists were included in this prospective study. All radiologists independently evaluated low-dose images for lesion detection and rated them for diagnostic quality using a qualitative scale. After application of the denoising network, the same radiologists evaluated lesion detectability and image quality. For clinical application, a consensus on lesion type and localization on preoperative mammographic examinations of breast cancer patients was reached after discussion. Thereafter, coded low-dose, reconstructed full-dose, and full-dose images were presented and assessed in a random order. Results Lesions on 40% reconstructed full-dose images were better perceived when compared with low-dose images of mastectomy specimens as a reference. In clinical application, as compared to 40% reconstructed images, higher values were given on full-dose images for resolution (p < 0.001); diagnostic quality for calcifications (p < 0.001); and for masses, asymmetry, or architectural distortion (p = 0.037). The 40% reconstructed images showed comparable values to 100% full-dose images for overall quality (p = 0.547), lesion visibility (p = 0.120), and contrast (p = 0.083), without significant differences. Conclusion Effective denoising and image reconstruction processing techniques can enable breast cancer diagnosis with substantial radiation dose reduction.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.125-132
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• 2006

The PET/CT scanner is an evolution in image technology. The two modalities are complementary with CT and PET images. The PET scan images are well known as low resolution anatomic landmak, but such problems may help with interpretation detailed anatomic framework such as that provided by CT scan. PET/CT offers some advantages-improved lesion localization and identification, more accurate tumor staging. etc. Conventional PET employs tranmission scan require around 4 min./bed position and 30 min. for whole body scan. But PET/CT scanner can reduced by 50% in whole body scan. Especially nowadays PET scanner LSO scintillator-based from BGO without septa and operate in 3-D acquisition mode with multidetectors CT. PET/CT scanner fusion problems solved through hardware rather than software. Such device provides with the capability to acquire accurately aligned anatomic and functional images from single scan. It is very important to effective detection from gamma ray source in PETdetector. And can be offer high quality diagnostic images. So we have study about detection processing of PET detector and high quality imaging process.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.335-342
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• 2004

This paper describes a trans-admittance scanner for breast cancer detection. A FPGA-based sinusoidal waveform generator produces a constant voltage. The voltage is applied between a hand-held electrode and a scan probe placed on the breast. The scan probe contains an 8x8 array of electrodes that are kept at the ground potential. Multi-channel precision digital ammeters using the phase-sensitive demodulation technique were developed to measure the exit current from each electrode in the array. Different regions of the breast are scanned by moving the probe on the breast. We could get trans-admittance images of resistor and saline phantoms with an anomaly inside. The images provided the information on the depth and location of the anomaly. In future studies, we need to improve the accuracy through a better calibration method. We plan to test the scanner's ability to detect a cancer lesion inside the human breast.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.321-329
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• 2017

This paper presents a bone metastasis Detection algorithm on abdominal computed tomography images for early detection using fully convolutional neural networks. The images were taken from patients with various cancers (such as lung cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, etc), and thus the locations of those lesions were varied. To overcome the lack of data, we augmented the data by adjusting the brightness of the images or flipping the images. Before the augmentation, when 70% of the whole data were used in the pre-test, we could obtain the pixel-wise sensitivity of 18.75%, the specificity of 99.97% on the average of test dataset. With the augmentation, we could obtain the sensitivity of 30.65%, the specificity of 99.96%. The increase in sensitivity shows that the augmentation was effective. In the result obtained by using the whole data, the sensitivity of 38.62%, the specificity of 99.94% and the accuracy of 99.81% in the pixel-wise. lesion-wise sensitivity is 88.89% while the false alarm per case is 0.5. The results of this study did not reach the level that could substitute for the clinician. However, it may be helpful for radiologists when it can be used as a screening tool.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2010

Beam quality is determined according to Xray tube's target material. In a range of between 22 kVp and 28 kVp, molybdenum target generates the characteristics energy between the average 17.9 kVp and 19.5 kVp, which produces the high contrast image of the breast. In this study, we used the Mo/Mo combination breast device and ALVIM TRM phantom and measured the detection ability of the minute lesion in the breast imaging throughout analyzing ROC curves. Assuming that an average subject thickness of the breast is 40 mm, the detection ability was not dependent on the kVp changes in a while dependent on both the mAs and thickness change. We can assure that it is not needed to increase the kVp for the imaging of breast which thickness is within the mean range of 40 mm.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2008

In this paper, we propose an auto-detection algorithm of basal cell carcinoma(BCC) from the protophorphyrin IX(PpIX) fluorescence image induced by appling the methyl 5-aminolaevulinate(MAL) ointment-induced protophorphyrin IX(PpIX) to the skin tumour area and then shining the wood lamp on the area. The proposed algorithm first generates 3 mask areas-tumor area, suspected tumor area and tumor free area and then applies local watershed algorithm to the turner and the suspected tumor areas to make small watershed regions that include similar luminance value pixels. Next, small watershed regions are merged by hierarchical queue based fast region merging that uses the difference between the average luminance values of adjacent watershed regions as a region merging criterion and finally BCC regions are detected. 50 tissue samples are acquired from the tumour regions of 10 patients with BCC that are extracted by using the proposed algorithm and are performed pathological examination by expert dermatologist. Experiment result shows the rate of tumor detection from BCC lesion using presurgical in vivo of MAL-indeuced PpIX fluorescence has high sensitivity 94.1% and relatively high specificity 82.6%.