• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.247-255
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• 2008

A coded aperture camera has been developed to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) while keeping the spatial resolution of a pinhole gamma camera. The purpose of this study was to optimize a coded aperture camera and to evaluate its possibility for thyroid imaging by Monte Carlo simulation. A clinical gamma camera, a pinhole collimator with 1.0 mm hole diameter, and a $79{\times}79$ modified uniformly redundant array (MURA) mask were designed using GATE (Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission). The penetration ratio, spatial resolution, integral uniformity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were simulated and evaluated as a function of the mask thickness. The spatial resolution of the coded aperture camera was consistent with the various mask thickness, SNR showed a maximum value at 1.2 mm mask thickness and integral uniformity was improved by increasing mask thickness. Compare to the pinhole gamma camera, the coded aperture camera showed improved SNR by a factor of 30 while keeping almost the same spatial resolution. In this simulation study, the results indicated that high spatial resolution and ultra-high SNR of the thyroid imaging are feasible using a coded aperture camera.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.237-243
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• 2007

Phantoms are very necessary for quality assurance of radio nuclides imaging systems to maintain standards and to ensure reproducibility of test. General quality assurance and instrument quality control are essential in every hospital. The human tissue equivalent materials are aluminum, areryl, water and epoxy..etc. It is very important to select optimum equivalant materials for a phantoms in QC. Especially, paraffin is very similar with human soft tissue in X or Gamma-ray physical characteristics and easy to buy with economically. We made a paraffin thyroid phantom and compare with thyroid areryl phantom, also used commercially in practice. Two small size cold spots(3 and 6 mm diameter) and a hot spot(3 mm diameter) embeded in paraffin phantom. And imaged with $^{99m}TcO_4$ by camera for analysis about spatial resolution and noise at the hot and cold spots. We got some results as below : 1. No difference in counting rate and noise between both arcryl and paraffin thyroid phantoms. 2. The best spatial resolution can be seen 6 cm distance between pinhole collimator and thyroid phantoms(arcryl and paraffin). 3. More optimal spatial resolution could acquired in paraffin thyroid phantom. Paraffin is very similar with human soft tissue in atomic number, density and relative absorbtion function, and can be shaped easily what we wanted. So we can recommendation paraffin as quality assurance phantom because its usefulness, economical benefit and purchasability.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.104-109
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• 2014

Purpose: Conventional pinhole scintigraphy offers a high resolution and generally use for thyroid scan or bone scintigraphy. the aim of this study is to evaluate performance of each aperture according to the diameter size. Materials and Methods: In this study 2 mm, 4 mm, 6 mm, 8 mm diameter pinhole collimators were mounted on Siemens E.CAM systems. In order to evaluate performance evaluation of each aperture, we acquired projection image by using SPECT for evaluating FWHM, resolution test and static image for evaluating thyroid phantom test. Results: As a result of FWHM showed 2.2 mm FWHM, 3.2 mm FWHM, 5.4 mm FWHM, 7.5 mm FWHM per each aperture in the resolution test. SNR, uniformity, contrast were acquired result from thyroid phantom test comparing general image and delayed image. as a result of SNR showed 6.55, 8.47, 6.2, 5.23 in case of general image and 5.25, 5.01, 5.38, 5.82 in case of delayed image per each aperture. as a result of uniformity showed 0.152, 0.118, 0.161, 0.19 in case of general image and 0.19, 0.199, 0.185, 0.171 in case of delayed image per each aperture. as a result of contrast showed 1.31, 1.19, 1.15, 1.01 in case of general image and 1.09, 1.08, 1.04, 1 in case of delayed image per each aperture. Conclusion: Resolution and sensitivity were heavily influenced by aperture size. and also we found advantage of delayed image as a result of thyroid phantom test.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.56-63
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• 2024

In high radiation fields, gamma cameras suffer from pulse pile-up, resulting in poor energy resolution, count losses, and image distortion. To overcome this problem, various methods have been introduced to reduce the size of the aperture or pixel, reject the pile-up events, and correct the pile-up events, but these technologies have limitations in terms of mechanical design and real-time processing. The purpose of this study is to develop a real-time gamma camera to evaluate the radioactive contamination in high radiation fields. The gamma camera is composed of a pinhole collimator, NaI(Tl) scintillator, position sensitive photomultiplier (PSPMT), signal processing board, and data acquisition (DAQ). The pulse pile-up is corrected in real-time with a field programmable gate array (FPGA) using the start time correction (STC) method. The STC method corrects the amplitude of the pile-up event by correcting the time at the start point of the pile-up event. The performance of the gamma camera was evaluated using a high dose rate ¹³⁷Cs source. For pulse pile-up ratios (PPRs) of 0.45 and 0.30, the energy resolution improved by 61.5 and 20.3%, respectively. In addition, the image artifacts in the ¹³⁷Cs radioisotope image due to pile-up were reduced.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.211-217
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• 2006

Purpose: Recombinant ScFv lym-1 was produced, using pET vector system for large scale production. Methods: ScFv lym-1 gene inserted pET-22b (+) vector, was expressed in E.coli BL-21 strain. ScFv lym-1 antibody extracted from periplasm, was purified with His-Taq column. To evaluated immunoreactivity with Raji cell, ScFv lym-1 was labeled with I-125 and I-125 ScFv lym-1 was purified with desalting column. Raji cell was injected into the C57BR/cdJ SCID mice. Gamma camera imaging were taken time point at 1, 8, 24, and 48 hr with 8 mm pinhole collimator. Results: An active scFv lym-1 could be produced in E. coli with soluble iron using PET vector system. Immuuoreaetivity and affinity constant of IgG lym-1 were 54% and $1.83{\times}10^9M^{-1}$, respectively, and those of scFv lym-1 were 53.7% and $1.46{\times}10^9M^{-1}$, respectively. Biodistribution of I-125 scFv lym-1 antibody showed faster clearance in blood, spleen, kidney and than I-125 IgG lym-1 antibody. Gamma camera image of I-125 scFv lym-1 antibody showed faster clearance and tumor targeting liver than I-125 IgG lym-1 antibody. Conclusions: In vitro properties of scFv lym-1 were similar to those of IgG lym-1. ScFv lym-1 showed faster blood clearance than IgG lym-1 There results suggest that scFv lym-1 antibody can be useful for tumor imaging agent.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.362-367
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• 1999

Purpose: We conducted this study to evaluate the role of dacryoscintigraphy in the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric patients with epiphora. Materials and Methods: In 58 patients aged from 2 months to 15 years (mean age $2.8{\pm}2.3$ years), dacryoscintigraphy was performed using a gamma camera with 4 mm pinhole collimator. We correlated symptoms with dacryosicntigraphic findings in all patients. In 37 patients who underwent ophthalmologic procedures, we analyzed the agreements of dacryoscintigraphic findings with the operation. Results: High rates of agreements between epiphora and obstruction on dacryoscintigraphy (69/72, 95.8%), and between scintigraphic obstructive findings and operation sites (44/47, 93.6%) were noted. Nine of foully-four (20.5%) asymptomatic eyes showed obstructive findings on dacroscintigraphy. Conclusion: In pediatric patients with epiphora, dacryoscintigraphy is a useful tool not only in diagnosing nasolacrimal duct obstruction but also in making a decision for therapeutic procedures.