• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.450-464
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• 2023

Pulse oximetry, a non-invasive technique for evaluating blood oxygen saturation, conventionally depends on isolated measurements, rendering it vulnerable to factors like illumination profile, spatial blood flow fluctuations, and skin pigmentation. Previous efforts to address these issues through imaging systems often employed red and near-infrared illuminations with distinct profiles, leading to inconsistent ratios of transmitted light and the potential for errors in calculating spatial oxygen saturation distributions. While an integrating sphere was recently utilized as an illumination source to achieve uniform red and near-infrared illumination profiles on the sample surface, its bulkiness presented practical challenges. In this work, we have enhanced the pulse oximetry imaging system by transitioning illumination from an integrating sphere to a multi-wavelength LED configuration. This adjustment ensures simultaneous emission of red and near-infrared light from the same position, creating a homogeneous illumination profile on the sample surface. This approach guarantees consistent patterns of red and near-infrared illuminations that are spatially uniform. The sustained ratio between transmitted red and near-infrared light across space enables precise calculation of the spatial distribution of oxygen saturation, making our pulse oximetry imaging system more compact and portable without compromising accuracy. Our work significantly contributes to obtaining spatial information on blood oxygen saturation, providing valuable insights into tissue oxygenation in peripheral regions.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.105-113
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• 2012

Biopsy is a type of histopathological examinations, in which a physician samples cells or tissues from a patient's suspicious lesion. Such a lesion frequently resides deep inside human body, and then a percutaneous biopsy is therefore performed using a thick needle with the assistance of medical imaging such as computed tomography(CT) and magnetic resonance imaging(MRI). Recently modern robotic technology is being introduced to percutaneous biopsy in order to reduce any possible human error and hazard on physicians caused by medical imaging. After medical imaging locates the exact location of lesion, an optimization algorithm plans the path for a biopsy needle. Subsequently, a robot system moves the biopsy needle to the lesion in accurate and safe way with the control of a practitioner or automatically. In this article, we try to look into the state-of-art of percutaneous biopsy using such robotic technology. We classified percutaneous biopsy robots by mechanical characteristics and by imaging technology. Then, advantage and disadvantage of each class type are described as well as the basic description, and a few representative designs for each type are introduced. Current research issues of robotized percutaneous biopsy are subjectively selected for the readers' convenience. We emphasize the basic technology of actuator and sensors compatible with imaging technology to conclude this review.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.116-124
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• 2021

It is important to differentiate between the target tissue (or organ) and the rest of the tissue before incision during surgery. And when it is necessary to preserve the differentiated tissues, the blood vessels connected to the tissue must be preserved together. Various non-invasive medical imaging methods have been developed for this purpose. We aimed to develop a medical imaging system that can simultaneously apply fluorescence imaging using indocyanine green (ICG) and laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) using laser speckle patterns. We designed to collect images directed to the two cameras on a co-axial optical path and to compensate equal optical path length for two optical designs. The light source used for fluorescence and LSCI the same 785 nm wavelength. This system outputs real-time images and is designed to intuitively distinguish target tissues or blood vessels. This system outputs LSCI images up to 37 fps through parallel processing. Fluorescence for ICG and blood flow in animal models were observed throughout the experiment.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1
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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.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.241-249
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• 2021

Recently, artificial intelligence for diagnosis system of obstetric diseases have been actively studied. Artificial intelligence diagnostic assist systems, which support medical diagnosis benefits of efficiency and accuracy, may experience problems of poor learning accuracy and reliability when inappropriate images are the model's input data. For this reason, before learning, We proposed an algorithm to exclude unread cervical imaging. 2,000 images of read cervical imaging and 257 images of unread cervical imaging were used for this study. Experiments were conducted based on the statistical method Radiomics to extract feature values of the entire images for classification of unread images from the entire images and to obtain a range of read threshold values. The degree to which brightness, blur, and cervical regions were photographed adequately in the image was determined as classification indicators. We compared the classification performance by learning read cervical imaging classified by the algorithm proposed in this paper and unread cervical imaging for deep learning classification model. We evaluate the classification accuracy for unread Cervical imaging of the algorithm by comparing the performance. Images for the algorithm showed higher accuracy of 91.6% on average. It is expected that the algorithm proposed in this paper will improve reliability by effectively excluding unread cervical imaging and ultimately reducing errors in artificial intelligence diagnosis.

• Prospectives of Industrial Chemistry
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.41-58
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• 2019

다공성 실리콘 나노 입자는 약물 전달과 바이오이미징 등 의생명공학 분야에 다양하게 활용할 수 있는 가능성을 지닌 소재이다. 실리콘 원소 특유의 생분해성, 발광 효과, 다공성 구조 형성을 통한 약물 전달 기능에 이르는 다양한 특성으로 인해 미래 중개의학 플랫폼으로 각광 받고 있으며, 특히 바이오이미징 분야에서의 활용성이 매우 주목 받고 있다. 이에 대한 최신 연구 동향을 보고하고자, 다공성 실리콘 나노 입자의 제작 및 바이오이미징 응용 연구에 대한 성과를 소개한다. 바이오이미징을 위한 핵심 요소인 발광 특성(근적외선 방출, 마이크로 초 단위의 감쇄 시간 등)에 대한 논의를 바탕으로 최근 연구 성과 및 약물 전달 과정 모니터링 기능 등 다방면의 응용 가능성에 대한 방향을 소개한다. 실리콘 나노 입자의 제작 및 표면 화학 반응을 통한 기능성 제어, 이를 활용한 바이오이미징 연구 동향에 대한 전략도 광범위하게 제시하고자 한다.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.77-89
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• 2010

Digital holography (DH) is a potentially disruptive new technology for many areas of imaging science, especially in microscopy and metrology. DH offers a number of significant advantages such as the ability to acquire holograms rapidly, availability of complete amplitude and phase information of the optical field, and versatility of the interferometric and image processing techniques. This article provides a review of the digital holography, with an emphasis on its applications in biomedical microscopy. The quantitative phase microscopy by DH is described including some of the special techniques such as optical phase unwrapping and holography of total internal reflection. Tomographic imaging by digital interference holography (DIH) and related methods is described, as well as its applications in ophthalmic imaging and in biometry. Holographic manipulation and monitoring of cells and cellular components is another exciting new area of research. We discuss some of the current issues, trends, and potentials.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.75-83
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• 2007

Elasticity is an important physical property of biological tissues. Differences in elasticity can help facilitate the diagnosis of tumors and their extent. Magnetic Resonance Elastography (MRE) tries to visualize images of tissue elasticity by externally applying shear stress on the surface of an imaging object. Applied shear stress induces internal displacements that can be measured from MR phase images. In order to conduct MRE imaging experiments, we need to first develop a vibrator. We found that there does not exist enough technical information to design the MRE vibrator. In this paper, we describe the theory, design and construction of an MRE vibrator. We report the performance of the developed vibrator using two different test methods. We found that the vibrator successfully induces enough internal displacements that can be imaged using an MRI scanner. We suggest future studies of numerous MRE imaging experiments using the vibrator.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.323-331
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• 2021

Purpose: To investigate the diagnostic criteria of T1-weighted imaging (T1W) and time-of-flight (TOF) imaging for detecting intraplaque hemorrhage (IPH) of a vertebrobasilar artery (VBA) compared with simultaneous non-contrast angiography and intraplaque hemorrhage (SNAP) imaging. Materials and Methods: Eighty-seven patients with VBA atherosclerosis who underwent high resolution MR imaging for evaluation of VBA plaque were reviewed. The presence and location of VBA plaque and IPH on SNAP were determined. The signal intensity (SI) of the VBA plaque on T1W and TOF imaging was manually measured and the SI ratio against adjacent muscles was calculated. The receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to compare the diagnostic accuracy for detecting VBA IPH. Results: Of 87 patients, 67 had IPH and 20 had no IPH on SNAP. The SI ratio between VBA IPH and temporalis muscle on T1W was significantly higher than that in the no-IPH group (235.9 ± 16.8 vs. 120.0 ± 5.1, P < 0.001). The SI ratio between IPH and temporalis muscle on TOF was also significantly higher than that in the no-IPH group (236.8 ± 13.3 vs. 112.8 ± 7.4, P < 0.001). Diagnostic efficacies of SI ratios on TOF and TIW were excellent (AUC: 0.976 on TOF and 0.964 on T1W; cutoff value: 136.7% for TOF imaging and 135.1% for T1W imaging). Conclusion: Compared with SNAP, cutoff levels of the SI ratio between VBA plaque and temporalis muscle on T1W and TOF imaging for detecting IPH were approximately 1.35 times.

• Journal of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Probes
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.72-79
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• 2017

Arbutin is a hydroquinone derivative with a glucose moiety. As a tyrosinase inhibitor, it is widely used as a skin-whitening cosmetic agent for the treatment of cutaneous hyperpigmentary disorders, such as melasma and freckles. In the medical field, many studies have addressed the use of arbutin in various tumors, but the mechanism for tumor uptake of arbutin is still unclear. In this paper, we radiolabeled arbutin using radioiodine and studied its pharmacokinetics and tumor uptake via biodistribution experiments and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging. Radiolabeled $^{131}I-arbutin$ was stable for up to 24 h in PBS and serum. Biodistribution studies and SPECT imaging indicated high uptake of the compound in the bladder and kidneys shortly after injection. Twenty-four hours post-injection, significant deiodination was observed. Apart from high thyroid uptake, selective tumor uptake was clearly observed. The tumor-to-muscle and tumor-to-blood ratios were 26 and 9, respectively.