• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.2034-2051
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• 2021

Metabolic encephalopathy is a critical condition that can be challenging to diagnose. Imaging provides early clues to confirm clinical suspicions and plays an important role in the diagnosis, assessment of the response to therapy, and prognosis prediction. Diffusion-weighted imaging is a sensitive technique used to evaluate metabolic encephalopathy at an early stage. Metabolic encephalopathies often involve the deep regions of the gray matter because they have high energy requirements and are susceptible to metabolic disturbances. Understanding the imaging patterns of various metabolic encephalopathies can help narrow the differential diagnosis and improve the prognosis of patients by initiating proper treatment regimen early.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.110-116
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• 2006

Finite element method (FEM) provides several advantages over other numerical methods such as boundary element method, since it allows truly volumetric analysis and incorporation of realistic electrical conductivity values. Finite element mesh generation is the first requirement in such in FEM to represent the volumetric domain of interest with numerous finite elements accurately. However, conventional mesh generators and approaches offered by commercial packages do not generate meshes that are content-adaptive to the contents of given images. In this paper, we present software that has been implemented to generate content-adaptive finite element meshes (cMESHes) based on the contents of MR images. The software offers various computational tools for cMESH generation from multi-slice MR images. The software named as the Content-adaptive FE Mesh Generation Toolbox runs under the commercially available technical computation software called Matlab. The major routines in the toolbox include anisotropic filtering of MR images, feature map generation, content-adaptive node generation, Delaunay tessellation, and MRI segmentation for the head conductivity modeling. The presented tools should be useful to researchers who wish to generate efficient mesh models from a set of MR images. The toolbox is available upon request made to the Functional and Metabolic Imaging Center or Bio-imaging Laboratory at Kyung Hee University in Korea.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.72-72
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• 2003

Purpose: To prove feasibility of proton chemical shift imaging (lH CSI) during stereotactic procedure, authors performed IH CSI in combination with a stereotactic headframe and selected targets according to local metabolic information, evaluated the pathologic results. Methods: The 1H CSI directed stereotactic biopsy was performed in five patients. 1H CSI was performed before conventional stereotactic MRI with gadolinium enhancement for stereotactic coordinates. The metabolite images expressed as integral ratios, Cho/Cr and Lac/Cr, were displayed in different colors. The stereotactic target coordinates were correlated with the coordinates from the 1H CSI images. Results: The final pathologic results obtained were concordant with the local metabolic information from 1H CSI. We believe that 1H CSI-directed stereotatic biopsy has the potential to significantly improve the accuracy of stereotactic biopsy targeting. Conclusions : Metabolic signals derived from 1H CSI could give us more direct clues for stereotactic target selection during the subsequent conventional stereotactic MR imaging. 1H CSI was feasible with the stereotatic headframe in place. The final pathologic results obtained were concordant with the local metabolic information from 1H CSI. Acknowledgement: This study was supported by a grant of the Center for Functional and Metabolic Imaging Technology, Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (02-PJ3-PG6-EV07-0002).

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.8-18
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• 2002

Early and accurate diagnosis of tumors using positron omission tomography (PET) has been the focus of considerable interest due to its high metastasis and mortality rates at late detection. PET radiopharmaceuticals-which exhibit a high tumor-to-background uptake ratio, and appropriate metabolic characteristics, and pharmacokinetics-are attractive tools for tumor imaging. Tumor imaging by these radiopharmaceuticals are based on metabolic and receptor imaging. The former is based on accelerated metabolism in tumor tissue compared to normal tissue and the rate roughly corresponding to the rate of growth of tumors. Radiopharmaceuticals for this purpose include radiolabeled sugars, amino acids, and nucleosides which detect increased glucose utilization, protein synthesis, and DNA synthesis, respectively. Tumor receptor imaging is based on the proliferation of tumor cells regulated by many hormones and growth factors, which bind to the corresponding receptors and exhibit the biological responses Radiopharmaceuticals used to image the tumor receptor systems may be ligands for the specific receptors and antibodies for the growth factor receptors. Some antitumor agents have been labeled with radionuclides and used to study in vivo biodistribution and pharmacokinetics in humans. This overview describes typical PET radiopharmaceuticals used for tumor imaging based on their uptake mechanisms.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.189-198
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• 2024

Objective: To investigate the prognostic utility of radiomics features extracted from ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT combined with clinical factors and metabolic parameters in predicting progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in individuals diagnosed with extranodal nasal-type NK/T cell lymphoma (ENKTCL). Materials and Methods: A total of 126 adults with ENKTCL who underwent ¹⁸F-FDG PET/CT examination before treatment were retrospectively included and randomly divided into training (n = 88) and validation cohorts (n = 38) at a ratio of 7:3. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operation Cox regression analysis was used to select the best radiomics features and calculate each patient's radiomics scores (RadPFS and RadOS). Kaplan-Meier curve and Log-rank test were used to compare survival between patient groups risk-stratified by the radiomics scores. Various models to predict PFS and OS were constructed, including clinical, metabolic, clinical + metabolic, and clinical + metabolic + radiomics models. The discriminative ability of each model was evaluated using Harrell's C index. The performance of each model in predicting PFS and OS for 1-, 3-, and 5-years was evaluated using the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results: Kaplan-Meier curve analysis demonstrated that the radiomics scores effectively identified high- and low-risk patients (all P < 0.05). Multivariable Cox analysis showed that the Ann Arbor stage, maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax), and RadPFS were independent risk factors associated with PFS. Further, β2-microglobulin, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status score, SUVmax, and RadOS were independent risk factors for OS. The clinical + metabolic + radiomics model exhibited the greatest discriminative ability for both PFS (Harrell's C-index: 0.805 in the validation cohort) and OS (Harrell's C-index: 0.833 in the validation cohort). The time-dependent ROC analysis indicated that the clinical + metabolic + radiomics model had the best predictive performance. Conclusion: The PET/CT-based clinical + metabolic + radiomics model can enhance prognostication among patients with ENKTCL and may be a non-invasive and efficient risk stratification tool for clinical practice.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.13-23
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• 1990

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.459-472
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• 2024

Hyperpolarized (HP) carbon-13 (¹³C) MRI represents an innovative approach for noninvasive, real-time assessment of dynamic metabolic flux, with potential integration into routine clinical MRI. The use of [1-¹³C]pyruvate as a probe and its conversion to [1-¹³C]lactate constitute an extensively explored metabolic pathway. This review comprehensively outlines the establishment of HP ¹³C-MRI, covering multidisciplinary team collaboration, hardware prerequisites, probe preparation, hyperpolarization techniques, imaging acquisition, and data analysis. This article discusses the clinical applications of HP ¹³C-MRI across various anatomical domains, including the brain, heart, skeletal muscle, breast, liver, kidney, pancreas, and prostate. Each section highlights the specific applications and findings pertinent to these regions, emphasizing the potential versatility of HP ¹³C-MRI in diverse clinical contexts. This review serves as a comprehensive update, bridging technical aspects with clinical applications and offering insights into the ongoing advancements in HP ¹³C-MRI.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 2007

Finite element analysis (FEA) is an effective means for the analysis of bioelectromagnetism. It has been successfully applied to various problems over conventional methods such as boundary element analysis and finite difference analysis. However, its utilization has been limited due to the overwhelming computational load despite of its analytical power. We have previously developed a novel mesh generation scheme that produces FE meshes that are content-adaptive to given MR images. MRI content-adaptive FE meshes (cMeshes) represent the electrically conducting domain more effectively with far less number of nodes and elements, thus lessen the computational load. In general, the cMesh generation is affected by the quality of feature maps derived from MRI. In this study, we have tested various feature maps created based on the improved differential geometry measures for more effective cMesh head models. As performance indices, correlation coefficient (CC), root mean squared error (RMSE), relative error (RE), and the quality of cMesh triangle elements are used. The results show that there is a significant variation according to the characteristics of specific feature maps on cMesh generation, and offer additional choices of feature maps to yield more effective and efficient generation of cMeshes. We believe that cMeshes with specific and improved feature map generation schemes should be useful in the FEA of bioelectromagnetic problems.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.61-64
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• 2017

A characteristic imaging finding in cases of methanol intoxication is putaminal necrosis, but its presence is usually not suspected due to its rarity. Methanol intoxication generally produces serious neurological symptoms that include visual disturbances and diminished consciousness, characteristically with metabolic acidosis. We reported the case of a 59-year-old man who was admitted to the hospital with diminished consciousness. Acute methanol intoxication was determined as the cause. Laboratory tests revealed high anion gap metabolic acidosis. Diffusion-weighted MRI indicated diffuse symmetric diffusion restriction lesions in the subcortical white matter of both cerebral hemispheres.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.209-223
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• 2002

By considering the biological properties of a tumor, it should be possible to realize better results in cancer therapy. PET imaging offers the opportunity to measure tumor growth non-invasively and repeatedly as an early assessment of response to cancer therapy. Measuring cellular growth instead of energy metabolism showed offer significant advantages in evaluating therapy. Thymidine and its derivative nucleoside compounds can be changed to mono, di- and tri- phosphate compounds by thymidine kinase and then be incorporated into DNA. Their bindings are increased in highly proliferating cells due to the high DNA synthesis rate. To evaluate cell proliferation, many kinds of thymidine and uridine derivatives have been labeled with positron emitter and radioactive iodine. Compared to radiopharmaceuticals which have radioisotope labeled base ring such as pyirmidine, the radiopharmacuticals which have radioisotope labeled sugar ring are more stable in vivo and have metabolic resistance. The biological properties such as DNA incorporation ratios are highly dependent on their chemical structures and metabolic processes. This overview describes synthesis of radiopharmaceuticals and their biological properties for imaging of tumor cell proliferation.