• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.433-444
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• 2020

This study proposes a method to improve the sleep stage and efficiency estimation of sleep apnea patients using a UWB (Ultra-Wideband) radar. Motion and respiration extracted from the radar signal were used. Respiratory signal disturbances by motion artifacts and irregular respiration patterns of sleep apnea patients are compensated for in the preprocessing stage. Preprocessing calculates the standard deviation of the respiration signal for a shift window of 15 seconds to estimate thresholds for compensation and applies it to the breathing signal. The method for estimating the sleep stage is based on the difference in amplitude of two kinds of smoothed respirations signals. In smoothing, the window size is set to 10 seconds and 34 seconds, respectively. The estimated feature was processed by the k-nearest neighbor classifier and the feature filtering model to discriminate between the sleep periods of the rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM). The feature filtering model reflects the characteristics of the REM sleep that occur continuously and the characteristics that mainly occur in the latter part of this stage. The sleep efficiency is estimated by using the sleep onset time and motion events. Sleep onset time uses estimated features from the gradient changes of the breathing signal. A motion event was applied based on the estimated energy change in the UWB signal. Sleep efficiency and sleep stage accuracy were assessed with polysomnography. The average sleep efficiency and sleep stage accuracy were estimated respectively to be about 96.3% and 88.8% in 18 sleep apnea subjects.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.220-229
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• 2013

Respiratory-induced dynamic tumors render free-breathing cone-beam computed tomography (FBCBCT) images with motion artifacts complicating the task of quantifying the internal target volume (ITV). The purpose of this paper is to study the visibility of the revealed ITV when the imaging dose parameters, such as the kVp and mAs, are varied. The $Trilogy^{TM}$ linear accelerator with an On-Board Imaging ($OBI^{TM}$) system was used to acquire low-imaging-dose-mode (LIDM: 110 kVp, 20 mA, 20 ms/frame) and high-imaging-dose-mode (HIDM: 125 kVp, 80 mA, 25 ms/frame) FBCBCT images of a 3-cm diameter sphere (density=0.855 $g/cm^3$) moving in accordance to various sinusoidal breathing patterns, each with an unique inhalation-to-exhalation (I/E) ratio, amplitude, and period. In terms of image ITV contrast, there was a small overall average change of the ITV contrast when going from HIDM to LIDM of $6.5{\pm}5.1%$ for all breathing patterns. As for the ITV visible volume measurements, there was an insignificant difference between the ITV of both the LIDM- and HIDM-FBCBCT images with an average difference of $0.5{\pm}0.5%$, for all cases, despite the large difference in the imaging dose (approximately five-fold difference of ~0.8 and 4 cGy/scan). That indicates that the ITV visibility is not very sensitive to changes in imaging dose. However, both of the FBCBCT consistently underestimated the true ITV dimensions by up to 34.8% irrespective of the imaging dose mode due to significant motion artifacts, and thus, this imaging technique is not adequate to accurately visualize the ITV for image guidance. Due to the insignificant impact of imaging dose on ITV visibility, a plausible, alternative strategy would be to acquire more X-ray projections at the LIDM setting to allow 4DCBCT imaging to better define the ITV, and at the same time, maintain a reasonable imaging dose, i.e., comparable to a single HIDM-FBCBCT scan.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.3-7
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• 2010

Purpose: The usefulness of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) images in diagnosis, staging, recurrent and treatment response evaluation has already been known. However, tumors which are small size, located in lower lobe of lung or upper lobe of liver are shown misalignment, distortion and different Standard Uptake Value (SUV) by respiration in PET images. Therefore, if radiotherapy based on normal respiration, it may cause low treatment response or more side effects because targets which had to treat, out of treat range or over dose to normal tissue. The purpose of this study is to evaluate attenuation-correction with Average CT (ACT) for more accuracy SUV measurement and minimize artifact by respiration. Materials and Methods: 13 patients, who had tumors which are around the diaphragm, underwent ACT scan after Helical CT (HCT) scan with PET/CT (Discovery DSTE 8; GE Healthcare). We quantified the differences between attenuation corrected image with HCT and attenuation corrected image with ACT in artifact size and maximum SUV ($SUV_{max}$). Artifacts were evaluated by measurement of the curved photogenic area in the lower thorax of the PET images for all patients. $SUV_{max}$ was measured separately at the primary tumors. Analysis program was Advantage Workstation v4.3 (GE Healthcare). Patients were injected with 7.4 MBq (0.2 $mC_i$) per kg of $^{18}F$-FDG and scanned 1 hour after injection. The PET acquisition was 3 minute per bed. Results: Significantly lower artifact were observed in PET/ACT images than in PET/HCT images (below-thoracic artifacts caused by under corrected $1.5{\pm}3.5$ cm vs. $13.4{\pm}4.2$ cm). Significantly higher $SUV_{max}$ were noted in PET/ACT images than in PET/HCT images in the primary tumor. Compared with PET/HCT images, $SUV_{max}$ in PET/ACT images were higher by $5.3{\pm}3.9%$ (mean value) tumor. The highest difference was observed in Lower lobe of lung (7.7 to 8.7; 13%). Conclusion: Due to its significantly reduced artifacts in lower thoracic, attenuation corrected image with ACT images provided more reliable $SUV_{max}$ and may be helpful in monitoring treatment response. Moreover, ACT can separate upper lobe of liver and lower lobe of lung, it may be helpful in interpretation. ACT will be clinically useful, considering increased dose caused by ACT scan and adapt.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.131-137
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• 2017

In the present study, we developed the 4D CT data generation program from CAD-based models. To evaluate the developed program, a CAD-based respiratory motion phantom was designed using CAD software, and converted into 4D CT dataset, which include 10 phases of 3D CTs. The generated 4D CT dataset was evaluated its effectiveness and accuracy through the implementation in radiation therapy planning system (RTPS). Consequently, the results show that the generated 4D CT dataset can be successfully implemented in RTPS, and targets in all phases of 4D CT dataset were moved well according to the user parameters (10 mm) with its stationarily volume (8.8 cc). The developed program, unlike real 4D CT scanner, due to the its ability to make a gold-standard dataset without any artifacts constructed by modality's movements, we believe that this program will be used when the motion effect is important, such as 4D radiation treatment planning and 4D radiation imaging.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.59-63
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• 2019

Purpose The motion due to respiration of patients undergoing PET/CT is a cause of artifacts in image and registration error between PET and CT images. The degree of displacement and distortion for tumor, which affects the measurement of Standard Uptake Value (SUV) and lesion volume, is especially higher for tumors that is small or located at the base of lungs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of prone position in the correction of image distortion due to respiration of patients in PET/CT. Materials and Methods The imaging equipment used in this study was PET/CT Discovery 600 (GE Healthcare, MI, USA). 20 patients whose lesions were identified in the middle and lower lungs from May to August 2018 were enrolled in this study. After acquiring whole body image in the supine position, additional images of the lesion area were obtained in the prone position with the same conditions. SUVmax, SUVmean, and volume of the lesion were measured for each image, and the displacement of the lesion on PET and CT images were measured, compared, and analyzed. Results The SUVmax, SUVmean, and volume, and displacement of the lesion were $4.72{\pm}2.04$, $3.10{\pm}1.38$, $4.68{\pm}3.20$, and $4.64{\pm}1.88$, respectively for image acquired in the supine position and $5.89{\pm}2.42$, $3.97{\pm}1.65$, $2.13{\pm}1.09$, and $2.24{\pm}0.84$, respectively for image acquired in the prone position, indicating that, for all the lesions imaged, SUVmax and SUVmean were higher and volume and displacement were smaller in the images acquired in prone position compared to those acquired in supine one(p<0.05). Conclusion These results showed that the prone position PET/CT imaging improves the quality of the image by increasing the SUV of the lesion and reducing the respiratory artifacts caused by registration error between PET and CT images. It is considered that the PET/CT imaging in the prone position is helpful in the diagnosis of the disease as an economical and efficient methods that correct registration error for the lesions in basal lung and reduce artifacts.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.85 no.1
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• pp.138-146
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• 2024

Purpose To evaluate whether the image quality of chest radiographs obtained using a camera-type portable X-ray device is appropriate for clinical practice by comparing them with traditional mobile digital X-ray devices. Materials and Methods Eighty-six patients who visited our emergency department and underwent endotracheal intubation, central venous catheterization, or nasogastric tube insertion were included in the study. Two radiologists scored images captured with traditional mobile devices before insertion and those captured with camera-type devices after insertion. Identification of the inserted instruments was evaluated on a 5-point scale, and the overall image quality was evaluated on a total of 20 points scale. Results The identification score of the instruments was 4.67 ± 0.71. The overall image quality score was 19.70 ± 0.72 and 15.02 ± 3.31 (p < 0.001) for the mobile and camera-type devices, respectively. The scores of the camera-type device were significantly lower than those of the mobile device in terms of the detailed items of respiratory motion artifacts, trachea and bronchus, pulmonary vessels, posterior cardiac blood vessels, thoracic intervertebral disc space, subdiaphragmatic vessels, and diaphragm (p = 0.013 for the item of diaphragm, p < 0.001 for the other detailed items). Conclusion Although caution is required for general diagnostic purposes as image quality degrades, a camera-type device can be used to evaluate the inserted instruments in chest radiographs.