• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.33-41
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• 2017

Objectives: The aim of this study is to evaluate the reproducibility and usefulness of the images through the fusion of CT(Computed tomography) and MRI(Magnetic resonance imaging) using a self-manufactured phantom. We will also compare and analyze the target dose from acquired images. Materials and Methods: Using a self-manufactured phantom, CT images and MRI images are acquired by 1.5T and 3.0T of different magnetic fields. The reproducibility of the size and volume of the small holes present in the phantom is compared through the image from CT and 1.5T and 3.0T MRI, and dose changes are compared and analyzed on any target. Results: 13 small hole diameters were a maximum 31 mm and a minimum 27.54 mm in the CT scan and the were measured within an average of 29.28 mm 1 % compared to actual size. 1.5 T MRI images showed a maximum 31.65 mm and a minimum 24.3 mm, the average is 28.8 mm, which is within 1 %. 3.0T MRI images showed a maximum 30.2 mm and a minimum 27.92 mm, the average is 29.41 mm, which is within 1.3 %. The dose changes in the target were 95.9-102.1 % in CT images, 93.1-101.4 % in CT-1.5T MRI fusion images, and 96-102 % in CT-3.0T MRI fusion images. Conclusion: CT and MRI are applied with different algorithms for image acquisition. Also, since the organs of the human body have different densities, image distortion may occur during image acquisition. Because these inaccurate images description affects the volume range and dose of the target, accurate volume and location of the target can prevent unnecessary doses from being exposed and errors in treatment planning. Therefore, it should be applied to the treatment plan by taking advantage of the image display algorithm possessed by CT and MRI.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.143-151
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• 2015

A PET-MR system is particularly useful in diagnosing brain diseases. We have developed a prototype positron emission tomography (PET) system which can be inserted into the bore of a whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system that enables us to obtain PET and MRI images simultaneously with a reduced cost. Silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) are appropriated as a PET detector at PET/MR system because detectors have a high gain and are insensitive to magnetic fields. Despite of its improved performance compared to that of PMT-based detectors, there is a problem of the photo-peak channel shift which is due to the increase of the temperature inside the ring detector. This problem will occur decreasing sensitivity of the PET and image distortion. In this paper, I quantitative analyze parameters of the KAIST SiPM depending on temperature by experiments. And I designed cooling methods in consideration of the degradation of sensors for correction of the temperature in the PET gantry. According to this research, we expect that distortive images and degradation of the sensitivity will not be occurred with using the above idea to reduce heat even if the PET system operates for a long time.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.117-133
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• 2005

For identifying the pathological findings in magnetic resonance images (MRIs), normal anatomical structures in MRIs should be identified in advance. For studying the anatomical structures in MRIs, a learning tool that includes the followings is necessary. First, MRIs of the entire body; second, horizontal, coronal, and sagittal MRIs; third, segmented images corresponding to the MRIs; fourth, three dimensional (3D) images of the anatomical structures in the MRIs; fifth, software incorporating the MRIs, segmented images, and 3D images. Such a learning tool, however, is hard to obtain. Therefore, in this research, such a learning tool which helps medical students and doctors study the normal anatomical structures in MRIs was made as follows. A healthy young Korean male adult with standard body shape was selected. Six hundred thirteen MRIs of the entire body were scanned (slice thickness 3 mm, interslice gap 0 mm, field of view 480 mm${\times}$480 mm, resolution 512${\times}$512, T1 weighted), and transferred to the personal computer. Sixty anatomical structures in the MRIs were segmented to make segmented images. Coronal, sagittal MRIs and coronal, sagittal segmented images were made. On the basis of the segmented images, forty-seven anatomical structures 3D images were made by manual surface reconstruction method. Software incorporating the MRIs, segmented images, and 3D images was composed. This learning tool that includes horizontal, coronal, sagittal MRIs of the entire body, corresponding segmented images, 3D images of the anatomical structures in the MRIs, and software is expected to help medical students and doctors study the normal anatomical structures in MRIs. This learning tool will be presented worldwide through Internet or CD titles.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.59 no.6
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• pp.584-589
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• 2016

Objective : A rare subtype of meningioma, sclerosing meningioma is not included in the current World Health Organization classification of meningiomas and is classified into the category of other morphological variation subtypes. Sclerosing meningioma is often misdiagnosed to other non-benign meningioma or malignant neoplasm, so it is important to diagnose sclerosing type correctly. We analyzed the radiological and clinical characteristics of a series of sclerosing meningiomas. Methods : Twenty-one patients who underwent surgery in one institute with a histopathologically proven sclerosing meningioma were included from 2006 to 2014. Eighteen tumors were diagnosed as a pure sclerosing-type meningioma, and 3 as mixed type. Magnetic resonance image was taken for all patients including contrast enhancement image. Computed tomography (CT) scan was taken for 16 patients. One neuroradiologist and 1 neurosurgeon reviewed all images retrospectively. Results : In the all 16 patients with preoperative CT images, higher attenuation was observed in the meningioma than in the brain parenchyma, and calcification was observed in 11 (69%). In 15 of the 21 patients (71%), a distinctive very low signal intensity appeared as a dark color in T2-weighted images. Nine of these 15 tumors (60%) exhibited heterogeneous enhancement, and 6 (40%) exhibited homogeneous enhancement that was unlike the homogeneous enhancing pattern shown by conventional meningiomas. Ten patients had a clear tumor margin without peritumoral edema. Conclusion : Although these peculiar radiological characteristics are not unique to sclerosing meningioma, we believe that they are distinctive features that may be helpful for distinguishing sclerosing meningioma from other subtypes.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.285-291
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• 2010

Recently, advance on various modalities of diagnosing, prostate volume estimation became possible not only by the existing two-dimension medical images data but also by the three-dimensional medical images data. In this study, magnetic resonance image (MRI), computer tomography (CT) and ultrasound (US) were employed to evaluate prostate phantom volume measurements for estimation, comparison and analysis. For the prostate phantoms aimed at estimating the volume, total of 17 models were developed by using devils-tongue jelly and changing each of the 5ml of capacity from 20ml to 100ml. For the volume estimation through 2D US, the calculation of the diameter with C9-5Mhz transducer was conducted by ellipsoid formula. For the volume estimation through 3D US, the Qlab software (Philips Medical) was used to calculate the volume data estimated by 3D9-3Mhz transducer. Moreover, the images by 16 channels CT and 1.5 Tesla MRI were added by the method of continuous cross-section addition and each of imaginary prostate model's volume was yielded. In the statistical analysis for comparing the availability of volume estimation, the correlation coefficient (r) was more than 0.9 for all indicating that there were highly correlated, and there were not statistically significant difference between each of the correlation coefficient (p=0.001). Therefore, the estimation of prostate phantom volume using three-dimensional modalities of diagnosing was quite closed to the actual estimation.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.45-50
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• 2010

In this study, we compared the clinical usefulness of SPAIR (Spectral Adiabatic Inversion Recovery) and STIR (Short TI Inversion Recovery) to evaluate the fat tissues precisely. The images of brain axial (n = 20), lumber spine sagittal (n = 20), hip joint coronal (n = 17) and knee joint (n = 25) were obtained by turbo spin echo T2 weighted method on 3T magnetic resonance image. The signal intensity (SI) values were measured using region of interest in fat, muscle tissue, and background noise. The inhomogeneity values were measured using the standard deviation (SD) value divided by the mean values. SD signifies the amount of error which is similar to the imaging heterogeneity. In brain axial images, the SPAIR showed more superior SI and inhomogeneity results than the STIR. In spine, hip and knee images, STIR showed more excellent SI results, but poor inhomogeneity than the SPAIR.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.209-217
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• 2018

Purpose: The objective of this study was to obtain improved susceptibility weighted images (SWI) of the cervical spinal cord using respiratory-induced artifact compensation. Materials and Methods: The artifact from $B_0$ fluctuations by respiration could be compensated using a double navigator echo approach. The two navigators were inserted in an SWI sequence before and after the image readouts. The $B_0$ fluctuation was measured by each navigator echoes, and the inverse of the fluctuation was applied to eliminate the artifact from fluctuation. The degree of compensation was quantified using a quality index (QI) term for compensated imaging using each navigator. Also, the effect of compensation was analyzed according to the position of the spinal cord using QI values. Results: Compensation using navigator echo gave the improved visualization of SWI in cervical spinal cord compared to non-compensated images. Before compensation, images were influenced by artificial noise from motion in both the superior (QI = 0.031) and inferior (QI = 0.043) regions. In most parts of the superior regions, the second navigator resulted in better quality (QI = 0.024, P < 0.01) compared to the first navigator, but in the inferior regions the first navigator showed better quality (QI = 0.033, P < 0.01) after correction. Conclusion: Motion compensation using a double navigator method can increase the improvement of the SWI in the cervical spinal cord. The proposed method makes SWI a useful tool for the diagnosis of spinal cord injury by reducing respiratory-induced artifact.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.979-987
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• 2021

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) can be early diagnosed by detecting lesions in brain magnetic resonance images (MRI). Unsupervised anomaly detection methods based on autoencoder have been recently proposed for automated detection of MS lesions. However, these autoencoder-based methods were developed only for 2D images (e.g. 2D cross-sectional slices) of MRI, so do not utilize the full 3D information of MRI. In this paper, therefore, we propose a novel 3D autoencoder-based framework for detection of the lesion volume of MS in MRI. We first define a 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) for full MRI volumes, and build each encoder and decoder layer of the 3D autoencoder based on 3D CNN. We also add a skip connection between the encoder and decoder layer for effective data reconstruction. In the experimental results, we compare the 3D autoencoder-based method with the 2D autoencoder models using the training datasets of 80 healthy subjects from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) and the testing datasets of 25 MS patients from the Longitudinal multiple sclerosis lesion segmentation challenge, and show that the proposed method achieves superior performance in prediction of MS lesion by up to 15%.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.8-18
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• 2013

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to find and categorize the various magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of spinal metastases that correlate with the type of primary cancer. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively reviewed gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance images of 30 patients with 169 spinal metastatic lesions from lung cancer (n = 56), breast cancer (n = 29), colorectal cancer (n = 20), hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (n = 17), and stomach cancer (n = 47). The size, location, extent of invasion, signal intensity, margin, enhancement pattern, and osteoblastic or osteolytic characteristics of each metastatic tumor were analyzed. Results: The metastatic lesions from HCC were larger than those from the other primary tumors (P < 0.05) except for colorectal cancer (P = 0.268). Well-defined metastatic tumor margins were more frequently seen in lung cancer and breast cancer (P < 0.01). All but HCC showed a tendency to invade the vertebral body rather than the posterior elements (P < 0.02). Colorectal cancer and HCC showed a tendency toward extraosseous invasion without statistical significance. HCC showed a characteristic enhancement pattern of 'worms-in-a-bag'. Rim enhancement with a sclerotic center was only seen in spinal metastases from stomach cancer. Conclusion: Despite many overlapping imaging features, spinal metastases of various primary tumors display some characteristic MRI findings that can help identify the primary cancer.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.140-140
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• 2001

We present two cases of surgically proven focal nodular hyperplasia whou underwent tri contrast-enhance MR imaging using gadolinium chelates, mangafodipir trisodium, and ferumoxides After the unehanced MR images were obtained, dynamic gadolinium-enhanced T1-weighted imagi were performed, then mangafodipir enhanced and ferumoxides-enhanced images were obtained. In one case, the mass was isointense on both T1- and T2-weighted images on the unehanced M images, iso and slightly hyperintense on ferumoxides-enhanced FSE and GRE images, strong hyperintense on the mangafodipir enhanced and gadolinium enhanced arterial phase images. In th other case, the mass was isointense on T2-weighted and hypointense on T1-weighted image isointense on ferumoxides-enhanced images, and hyperintense on mangafodipir enhanced an gadolinium enhanced arterial phase images. Triple contrast enhanced MR images were useful correctly diagnose these two cases preoperatively.