• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.14-22
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• 2015

Renal scintigraphic methods, which are physiologic and minimally invasive, have played important role in the management of various renal diseases in children, providing sensitive tool for early detection of disease even before structural changes become prominent and giving valuable functional and anatomical information to aid medical decision makings in the treatment and follow-up of patients. This review article focuses on the concept and advantages of renal scintigraphy in pediatric patients with various urologic diseases.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.8
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• pp.3210-3223
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• 2024

International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recently developed the adult and pediatric meshtype reference computational phantoms (MRCPs) in high-quality/fidelity mesh format, featuring high deformability into various body sizes and poses. Utilizing this feature, the adult MRCPs-based body-size-dependent phantom library was developed for individualized dosimetry. To complete the full phantom library set, the present study produced the pediatric-MRCPs-based body-size-dependent pediatric phantom library. The library comprises a total of 637 phantoms (356 males and 281 females) with varying standing heights and body weights, covering a wide range of body sizes (i.e., including from 1st to 99th percentile height and weight values) for infants, children, and adolescents, offering a realistic representation of body shapes by reflecting ten secondary anthropometric parameters. The phantoms were automatically constructed utilizing automatic deformation program. The dosimetric impact of the library was investigated by calculating organ doses for external exposures to broad parallel photon beams in anterior-posterior direction. Compared with the values of the pediatric MRCPs, significant differences were observed at energies <0.05 MeV, showing larger values for underweight phantom and smaller values for obese phantom. The results highlight the importance of using the pediatric phantom library for accurate dose estimates of individual children with various body sizes.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.45-47
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• 1985

We conclude that Nuclear Medicine technology has much to offer in the diagnosis of cardiovascular pathologies. Its potnetials have yet to be fully appreciated by those who have access to the facility, as also by those who practise speciality with resigned pessimism.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.128-134
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• 2015

Recently, the structured data format in RDF/OWL has played an increasingly vital role in the semantic web. We converted pediatric and oncologic nuclear medicine imaging reports in free text into RDF/OWL format and evaluated the usefulness of nuclear medicine imaging reports in RDF/OWL by comparing SPARQL query results with the manually retrieved results by physicians from the reports in free text. SPARQL query showed 95% recall for simple queries and 91% recall for dedicated queries. In total, SPARQL query retrieved 93% (51 lesions of 55) recall and 100% precision for 20 clinical query items. All query results missed by SPARQL query were of some inference. Nuclear medicine imaging reports in the format of RDF/OWL were very useful for retrieving simple and dedicated query results using SPARQL query. Further study using more number of cases and knowledge for inference is warranted.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.4698-4707
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• 2022

As part of the ICRP Task Group 103 project, we developed ten thyroid models for the pediatric mesh-type reference computational phantoms (MRCPs). The thyroid is not only a radiosensitive target organ needed for effective dose calculation but an important source region particularly for radioactive iodines. The thyroid models for the pediatric MRCPs were constructed by converting those of the pediatric voxel-type reference computational phantoms (VRCPs) in ICRP Publication 143 to a high-quality mesh format, faithfully maintaining their original topology. At the same time, we improved several anatomical parameters of the thyroid models for the pediatric MRCPs, including the mass, overlying tissue thickness, location, and isthmus dimensions. Absorbed doses to the thyroid for the pediatric MRCPs for photon external exposures were calculated and compared with those of the pediatric VRCPs, finding that the differences between the MRCPs and VRCPs were not significant except for very low energies (<0.03 MeV). Specific absorbed fractions (target ⟵ thyroid) for photon internal exposures were also compared, where significant differences were frequently observed especially for the target organs/tissues close to the thyroid (e.g., a factor of ~1.2-~327 for the thymus as a target) due mainly to anatomical improvement of the MRCP thyroid models.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.2247-2257
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• 2024

To investigate the impact of the recently released pediatric reference voxel phantoms (0-, 1-, 5-, 10-, 15-year-old males and females) of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) on organ dose estimates for radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment in pediatric patients, we calculated and analyzed pediatric-specific iodine131 S values (r_T ← thyroid) for the 30 radiosensitive organs by conducting Monte Carlo simulations using the Geant4. The gender dependency in the S values was frequently seen for the 15-year-old phantoms with higher S values of female than male. In addition, the age dependency in the S values was observed for most target organs; that is, the S values tend to decrease for older ages (e.g., ~120 times for the gonads between the adult and newborn) due mainly to the inter-organ distances generally longer for older ages. Moreover, we observed that the iodine-131 S values tend to be significantly greater by up to ~145.5 times than those of the stylized phantoms that have been widely used for organ dose estimates of pediatric RAI patients. We believe that the pediatric-specific iodine-131 S values (r_T ← thyroid) of the ICRP pediatric reference voxel phantoms should be beneficial to improve the dosimetry of pediatric RAI patients.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.213-219
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• 1987

Although the exact mechanism is not clearly understood yet, there were examples of the uptake of radiopharmaceuticals to the soft tissue lesions with $^{99m}Technetium$ methylene diphosphonate bone scan. Recently, we experienced two cases of neuroblastoma of which primary sites were imaged with $^{99m}Tc-MDP$ bone scan preoperatively and could make the diagnosis. So, we report here that $^{99m}Tc-MDP$ bone scan is the reasonable method not only to find out the bone metastasis, but also to diagnose the neuroblastoma preoperatively.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.657-665
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• 2017

The aim of this study was to develop and distribute a dedicated program that can easily calculate the effective dose of a patient undergoing nuclear medicine examinations, and assist in the study of dose of nuclear medicine examinations and information disclosure. The program produced a database of the effective dose per unit activity administered (mSv/MBq) of the radiopharmaceuticals listed in ICRP 80, 106 Report and the fourth addendum, was designed through Microsoft Visual Basic (In Excel) to take the effect of 5 different (Area, Clark, Solomon(=Fried), Webster, Young) of pediatric dose calculation methods and 7 different body surface area calculation methods. The program calculates the effective dose (mSv) when the age, radionuclide, substance, and amount injected in the human body is inputted. In pediatric cases, when the age is entered, the pediatric method is activated and the pediatric method to be applied can be selected. When the BSA (Body Surface Area) formula is selected in the pediatric calculation method, a selection window for selecting the body surface area calculation method is activated. When the adult dose is input, the infant dose and the effective dose (mSv) are calculated automatically. The patient effective dose calculation program of the nuclear medicine examinations produced in this study is meaningful as a tool for calculating the internal exposure dose of the human body that is most likely to be obtained in nuclear medicine examinations, even though it is not the actual measurement dose. In the future, to increase the utilization of the program, it will be produced as an application that can be used in mobile devices, so that the public can access it easily.

• Childhood Kidney Diseases
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.45-49
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• 2016

Purpose: This study was performed to evaluate the effects of cyclosporine-A (CsA) on linear growth in pediatric patients with steroid-dependent (SDNS) or resistant nephrotic syndrome (SRNS). Methods: Thirty-five pediatric patients with SDNS or SRNS undergoing glucocorticoid (GC) and/or CsA treatment were retrospectively reviewed. Seventeen patients were treated with GC alone and 18 were treated with GC and CsA. The cumulative doses of GC and CsA were quantified (mg/kg/day). Linear growth during the follow-up period was defined as the difference in Z-score between the initial and final height according to the follow-up period (${\Delta}$ height Z score/year). The associations between linear growth and clinical parameters were analyzed. Results: The linear growth of patients in the two groups was not significantly different (P=0.262). The ${\Delta}$ height Z score/year did not show a significant correlation with the cumulative doses of CsA, but was negatively correlated with the cumulative dose of GC and positively correlated with the Z score for height at the time of diagnosis. Conclusion: In children with SDNS or SRNS undergoing GC therapy, added CsA treatment may not have harmful effects on linear growth.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.sup1
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• pp.137-139
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• 2008

Wilms Tumor is a great therapeutic success story within pediatric oncology. Therefore, accurate initial staging is needed to assess tumor spread and to assign patients appropriately to the different risk branches. However, it is recognized that FDG-PET can provide useful information about tumor and has better accuracy than CT and MRI for staging, but its role in Wilms tumor is unclear. According to clinical research data, FDG PET may be useful for the management of selected patients with Wilms tumors.