• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제30권1호
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• pp.1-9
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• 2009

Many types of small animal imaging modalities, like micro-CT, micro-PET, and micro-SPECT, have been recently developed worldwide. Small animal imaging systems are now recognized as indispensable tools to validate efficacy and safety of new drugs or new therapeutic methods using the animal disease models. With increasing demands for small animal imaging in biomedical research, multimodal small animal imaging systems, like micro-PET/CT or micro PET/MRI, are now also being developed. Small animal imaging with spatial resolution and sensitivity comparable to human imaging is quite challenging since laboratory small animals are much smaller than human beings. Research activities in Korea on small animal imaging systems are reviewed in this paper. In the field of micro-CT and micro-PET, many world-class technologies have been developed successfully in Korea. It is expected that the developed animal imaging system technologies can be used in the development of clinical imaging systems in Korea in the near future.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• 제42권1호
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• pp.1-7
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• 2008

PET allows non-invasive, quantitative and repetitive imaging of biological function in living animals. Small animal PET imaging with $[^{18}F]$FDG has been successfully applied to investigation of metabolism, receptor-ligand interactions, gene expression, adoptive cell therapy and somatic gene therapy. Experimental condition of animal handling impacts on the biodistribution of $[^{18}F]$FDG in small animal study. The small animal PET and CT images were registered using the hardware fiducial markers and small animal contour point. Tumor imaging in small animal with small animal $[^{18}F]$FDG PET should be considered fasting, warming, and isoflurane anesthesia level. Registered imaging with small animal PET and CT image could be useful for the detection of tumor. Small animal experimental condition of animal handling and registration method will be of most importance for small lesion detection of metastases tumor model.

• 대한핵의학회지
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• 제38권2호
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• pp.131-139
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• 2004

Small animal models are extensively utilized in the study of biomedical sciences. Current animal experiments and analysis are largely restricted to in vitro measurements and need to sacrifice animals to perform tissue or molecular analysis. This prevents researchers from observing in vivo the natural evolution of the process under study. Imaging techniques can provide repeatedly in vivo anatomic and molecular information noninvasively. Small animal imaging systems have been developed to assess biological process in experimental animals and increasingly employed in the field of molecular imaging studies. This review outlines the current developments in nuclear medicine imaging instrumentations including fused multi-modality imaging systems for small animal imaging.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제29권2호
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• pp.107-113
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• 2008

We introduce a rotating-gantry-based x-ray micro-tomography system to be used for small animal imaging studies. It has the zoom-in imaging capability for high resolution imaging of a local region inside the animal subject without any contrast anomalies arising from truncation of the projection data. With the sliding mechanism mounted on the rotating gantry holding the x-ray source and the x-ray detector, we can control the magnification ratio of the x-ray projection data. By combining the projection data from the large field of view (FOV) scan of the whole animal subject and the projection data from the small FOV scan of the region of interest, we can obtain artifact-free zoomed-in images of the region of interest. For the acquisition of x-ray projection data, we use a $1248{\times}1248$ flat-panel x-ray detector with the pixel pitch of 100 mm. It has been experimentally found that the developed system has the spatial resolution of up to 121p/mm when the highest magnification ratio of 5:1 is applied to the zoom-in imaging. We present some in vivo rat femur images to demonstrate utility of the developed system for small animal imaging.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제28권1호
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• pp.95-101
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• 2007

Recently, small-animal imaging technology has been rapidly developed for longitudinal screening of laboratory animals such as mice and rats. One of newly developed imaging modalities for small animals is an x-ray micro-CT (computed tomography). We have developed two types of x-ray micro-CT systems for small animal imaging. Both systems use flat-panel x-ray detectors and micro-focus x-ray sources to obtain high spatial resolution of $10{\mu}m$. In spite of the relatively large field-of-view (FOV) of flat-panel detectors, the spatial resolution in the whole-body imaging of rats should be sacrificed down to the order of $100{\mu}m$ due to the limited number of x-ray detector pixels. Though the spatial resolution of cone-beam CTs can be improved by moving an object toward an x-ray source, the FOV should be reduced and the object size is also limited. To overcome the limitation of the object size and resolution, we introduce zoom-in micro-tomography for high-resolution imaging of a local region-of-interest (ROI) inside a large object. For zoom-in imaging, we use two kinds of projection data in combination, one from a full FOV scan of the whole object and the other from a limited FOV scan of the ROI. Both of our micro-CT systems have zoom-in micro-tomography capability. One of both is a micro-CT system with a fixed gantry mounted with an x-ray source and a detector. An imaged object is laid on a rotating table between a source and a detector. The other micro-CT system has a rotating gantry with a fixed object table, which makes whole scans without rotating an object. In this paper, we report the results of in vivo small animal study using the developed micro-CTs.

• Toxicological Research
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.1-6
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• 2013

The process of drug discovery and development requires substantial resources and time. The drug industry has tried to reduce costs by conducting appropriate animal studies together with molecular biological and genetic analyses. Basic science research has been limited to in vitro studies of cellular processes and ex vivo tissue examination using suitable animal models of disease. However, in the past two decades new technologies have been developed that permit the imaging of live animals using radiotracer emission, X-rays, magnetic resonance signals, fluorescence, and bioluminescence. The main objective of this review is to provide an overview of small animal molecular imaging, with a focus on nuclear imaging (single photon emission computed tomography and positron emission tomography). These technologies permit visualization of toxicodynamics as well as toxicity to specific organs by directly monitoring drug accumulation and assessing physiological and/or molecular alterations. Nuclear imaging technology has great potential for improving the efficiency of the drug development process.

• 한국콘텐츠학회논문지
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• 제14권2호
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• pp.475-481
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• 2014

이 연구의 목적은 감마선 검출 시스템을 개발하여 평행구멍형 조준기와 바늘구멍 조준기를 이용하여, 각각 소동물용 감마영상 획득과 환경 방사선 검출 영상을 획득하는 것이다. 본 연구에서는 크기가 $50{\times}50mm$ 이며, 6 mm 두께의 CsI(Tl) 섬광체와 $50{\times}50mm$ 크기의 Hamamatsu H8500C 위치민감형 광전자증배관, 저항분배회로, 전치증폭기, 성형증폭기, NIM 모듈 및 아날로그 디지털 변환기로 구성된 감마카메라를 개발하였다. 또한. 바늘구멍 감마카메라와 전하결합소자 카메라를 결합하여 환경모니터링에 적용할 수 있는 장비를 개발하였다. 본 연구 결과는 평행 구멍형 조준기와 바늘구멍 조준기를 이용한 감마카메라를 각각 소동물용 감마영상 획득과 환경방사선 측정에 적용 할 수 있음을 보여주었다. 이 시스템은 소 동물전용 감마카메라와 환경방사선 측정 시스템으로 활용 될 수 있을 것이다.

• 대한약리학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한약리학회 2006년도 58th Annual Meeting of The Korean Society of Pharmacology
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• pp.53-53
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• 2006

• 대한수의학회지
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• 제62권3호
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• pp.23.1-23.5
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• 2022

A 5-year-old castrated male domestic shorthair cat was referred for further investigation of pulmonary nodules incidentally detected on thoracic radiographs. Thoracic radiographs identified ill-defined soft tissue opacity nodules with small faint mineral opacity. Thoracic computed tomography (CT) revealed that bronchial dilation and bronchial wall thickening in bilateral cranial and accessory lung lobes. Round to ellipsoid mineralized concretions were found embedded in the intrabronchial soft tissue attenuation material. Based on radiography, CT, and cytology, the patient was tentatively diagnosed as having broncholithiasis with chronic bronchitis. This report described the CT diagnosis of broncholithiasis, which has been rarely reported in a cat.

• 한국임상수의학회지
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• 제37권2호
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• pp.91-95
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• 2020

A 13-year-old, intact male, Yorkshire terrier dog with oliguria and hematuria was presented to the Small Animal Clinic at the Gyeongsang National University animal medical center. There were no remarkable findings on serum chemistry values and complete blood counts. Abdominal radiographs revealed mild elevation of the descending colon at the pelvic level. On the excretory urographic images, a large filling defect was identified in urinary bladder with narrow urinary bladder wall contact and there were no remarkable findings in kidneys and ureters. The abdominal ultrasonography revealed that an irregularly marginated, heterogeneous mass in urinary bladder, central cavitary lesion and mild vascular flow were also observed. Computed tomography showed a heterogeneously attenuated mass within urinary bladder. The mass was surgically excised, and leiomyosarcoma was confirmed by histopathological examination. The patient was followed up for two months and there were no complications. This case is of interest because of the unusual findings of leiomyosarcoma of urinary bladder in a small breed dog.