• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.217-232
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• 1999

The ability to see the internal organs of the human body in a noninvasive way is a powerful diagnostic tool of modern medicine. Among these imaging modalities such as X-ray, MRI, and ultrasound. MRI and ultrasound are presenting much less risk of undesirable damage of both patient and examiner. In fact, no deleterious effects have been reported as a result of clinical examination by using MRI and ultrasound diagnostic equipment. As a result. their market volume has been rapidly increased. MRI has a good resolution. but there are a few disadvantages such as high price. non-real-time imaging capability. and expensive diagnostic cost. On the other hand, the ultrasound imaging system has inherently poor resolution as compared with X-ray and MRI. In spite of its poor resolution, the ultrasound diagnostic equipment is lower in price and has an ability of real-time imaging as compared with the others. As a result. the ultrasound imaging system has become general and essential modality for imaging the internal organs of human body. In this review various researches and developments to enhance the resolution of the ultrasound images are explained and future trends of the ultrasound imaging technology are described.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.105-114
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• 2022

Background: The objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) is used in the colleges of Korean Medicine, but few studies have validated the OSCE evaluation criteria or post-education questionnaires. Diagnostic ultrasound is used in Korean medicine treatment including acupuncture, acupotomy, and pharmacopuncture to increase the safety and efficacy of treatment. We aimed to develop and validate a OSCE checklist and questionnaire for diagnostic musculoskeletal ultrasound training. Methods: A OSCE checklist and rubric for diagnostic ultrasound training, and questionnaire was developed using literature research. Eight expert panelists verified each draft item in a single-round survey. Items with a content validity ratio (CVR) < 0.75 were excluded or modified to reflect the experts' opinions. Results: The OSCE checklist and rubric for diagnostic ultrasound training focusing on volar wrist and carpal tunnel syndrome included: 15 items revised according to CVR and expert opinions, the pre-examination procedure, structures to be identified by ultrasound, scans with 2 diagnostic criteria for carpal tunnel syndrome, an explanation of the exam results, and the post exam procedure. The questionnaire consisted of 15 items, including the overall evaluation of training, the effect of the OSCE, and the perception of the ultrasound. All 6 self-evaluation items were not revised, as they had a CVR of ≥ 0.75. Conclusion: An ultrasound OSCE for scanning the volar wrist and diagnosing carpal tunnel syndrome was developed using 15 validated tasks, 15 survey questions about ultrasound training, and 6 questions for self-evaluation. These results may be used in the future for education in diagnostic ultrasound.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.367-374
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to understand the infection prevention system and infection management perception of Ultrasound diagnostic room in medical institutions by sonographer's in general practitioner, semi and general hospitals. As a research method, a statistical analysis was conducted by surveying a total of 20 items in four category to determine the infection perception of sonographer's according to gender, age, working institution, and working period. As a result of infection awareness, males were in the ultrasound gel management category, women were in the transducer management category, all age groups were in the transducer management system category, and the General Practitioner, semi and general hospitals. were in the transducer management system category, and general hospitals showed a high degree of infection awareness in the category of disinfection and sterilization, and in the category of transducer management in the entire working period. In the results of the analysis of the correlation between the sub-factors of the perception of infection control in the Ultrasound diagnostic room the degree of correlation between each category showed a middle degree correlation(r>0.5) and a significant difference by category(p<.01). In conclusion, the prevention of infection in the ultrasound diagnostic room, which sonographer's firms think, was found to be the most efficient ultrasound diagnostic room infection control to implement transducer and gel management in accordance with the principles of disinfection and sterilization.

• Journal of Appropriate Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.45-50
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• 2020

We developed the world's first wireless ultrasound diagnostic device. For the smooth delivery of pregnant women, the WHO requires four prior examinations, and the use of ultrasound diagnostic devices is essential for this purpose. However, income levels and medical facilities in developing countries are falling short. We conducted KOICA's CTS program in Vietnam using a self-developed radio ultrasound diagnostic device. We supplied Sonon300C, a portable wireless ultrasound diagnostic device, to health centers and hospitals in Huong-Hoa district, Vietnam, and conducted an outreach program in an effort to further enhance business performance. As a result, the rate of ultrasound diagnostics in the region reached 100% and the percentage of trained graduates increased to 59%.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.181-183
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• 2004

Hepatic mass was aspirated under the guidance with ultrasound in 9-year old female maltese with signs of anorexia, hematochezia, vomiting, depression, and abdominal distension. Radiographic and abdominal ultrasonographic examinations were performed, which revealed enlarged tubular shaped uterine mass and solitary, small round hyperechoic hepatic mass dorsal to gall bladder as an incidental finding. Ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration was completed, but histologic confirmation should be made for definitive diagnosis by tissue core or wedge biopsy.

• Clinical Pain
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.86-92
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• 2021

Ultrasound imaging in clinical practice is one of the widely used diagnostic methods because there is no radiation risk, more cost- effective compared to MRI or CT, and possible to perform an intervention through fast real-time imaging. In order to increase the diagnostic value, the studies of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) using an ultrasound contrast agent have been actively conducted since about 50 years ago and are being used clinically in vascularity and microcirculation of internal organs. Although ultrasound is actively used for the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases in musculoskeletal disorders, there are some limitations in diagnosing mild or small lesions, inflammatory reactions, or abnormalities at the molecular level. In this review, the principles, types, and research, and clinical applications of ultrasound contrast agents have been summarized and introduced. If we understand the characteristics of the ultrasound contrast agents and anatomical knowledge, as well as molecular changes, the ultrasound contrast agents are widely applied in musculoskeletal disorders and have tremendous potential for diagnosis and treatment.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.170-186
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• 2001

Musculoskeletal ultrasound (MSUS) has newly evolved by the mechanical improvement of the machine over past several years, becoming a part of imaging techniques for the evaluation of variable diseases in the musculoskeletal system. MSUS has proven diagnostic superiority in pathologies including rotator cuff disease of the shoulder, lateral epicondylitis of the elbow, diseases of the peripheral nerve, detection of intra-articular loose bodies and soft tissue foreign bodies, and in evaluating small superficial soft tissue tumors such as ganglion, epidermoid cyst, and glomus tumor. Besides, MSUS is very useful for obtaining tissue or fluid via percutaneous fine needle aspiration and/or biopsy for the histopathologic diagnosis. Combining MSUS with MR would play a great role in the field of the diagnostic imaging of the musculoskeletal system. The MSUS examiner should have the knowledge of cross-sectional anatomy, and of the mechanical and physical properties of ultrasound in order to interpret the ultrasound findings accurately and properly, and to avoid diagnostic errors due to variable artifacts subsequently. The goal of this article is to introduce the capabilities of MSUS in certain kinds of clinical situation and to familiarize the reader with MSUS. For the purpose, author intends to describe this article according not to the disease-, or organ-based, but to the clinical problem-based format.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.408-414
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• 2011

This study was carried out to analyze the utilization of ultrasound machines in animal hospitals and focused on surveying the present condition of diagnostic ultrasound on veterinary medicine in South Korea. Total 279 veterinary hospitals were surveyed with e-mail questionnaires or telephone survey. E-mail questionnaires consist of 17 items of questions including existence of ultrasound machine, types of ultrasound machine, ultrasound examination costs, frequency, purposes, other diagnostic imaging equipments, and referring system of ultrasound. Telephone surveys asked about the existence of the ultrasound machine and types of the ultrasound machine to 279 animal hospitals. Two hundred and seventy-one out of 279 animal hospitals holds ultrasound machine. Seventy-two percents clinics purchased used ultrasonographic machines and mean years after the date of manufacture is 7.5 years and the proportion of superannuated machines are relatively high. Also many clinicians prefer single organ scanning rather than general scan technique and more than 60% of clinics perform ultrasonographic examination less than 5 times a week. Clinics located in Seoul area tend to have more expensive and brand-new ultrasonographic machines and the distribution of radiology specialist are higher in this area. Problems associated with the present condition were oversupply of machines, unequal distribution of the medical equipment in different localities, ineffective use of the medical equipment, and high percentage of old poor-quality medical equipments. There should be a viable alternative proposal to control amount and quality of the ultrasound machines. Also, the improved management system for the ultrasound machine is required.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.247-257
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• 2003

This paper proposes a three-dimensional (3D) segmentation algorithm for extracting a diagnostic object from ultrasound images by using a LoG operator In the proposed algorithm, 2D cutting planes are first obtained by the equiangular revolution of a cross sectional Plane on a reference axis for a 3D volume data. In each 2D ultrasound image. a region of interest (ROI) box that is included tightly in a diagnostic object of interest is set. Inside the ROI box, a LoG operator, where the value of $\sigma$ is adaptively selected by the distance between reference points and the variance of the 2D image, extracts edges in the 2D image. In Post processing. regions of the edge image are found out by region filling, small regions in the region filled image are removed. and the contour image of the object is obtained by morphological opening finally. a 3D volume of the diagnostic object is rendered from the set of contour images obtained by post-processing. Experimental results for a tumor and gall bladder volume data show that the proposed method yields on average two times reduction in error rate over Krivanek's method when the results obtained manually are used as a reference data.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2361-2368
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• 2015

Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) in differentiating between benign and malignant enlarged lymph nodes using meta-analysis. Materials and Methods: Pubmed, Embase, SCI and Cochrane databases were searched for studies (up to September 1, 2014) reporting the diagnostic performance of CEUS in discriminating between benign and malignant lymph nodes. Inclusion criteria were: prospective study; histopathology as the reference standard; and sufficient data to construct $2{\times}2$ contingency tables. Methodological quality was assessed using Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2). Patient clinical characteristics, sensitivity and specificity were extracted. The summary receiver operating characteristic curve was used to examine the accuracy of CEUS. A meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the clinical utility in identification of benign and malignant lymph nodes. Sensitivity analysis was performed after omitting outliers identified in a bivariate boxplot and publication bias was assessed with Egger testing. Results: The pooled sensitivity, specificity and AUROC were 0.92 (95%CI, 0.85-0.96), 0.91 (95%CI, 0.82-0.95) and 0.97 (95%CI, 0.95-0.98), respectively. After omitting 3 outlier studies, heterogeneity decreased. Sensitivity analysis demonstrated no disproportionate influences of individual studies. Publication bias was not significant. Conclusions: CEUS is a promising diagnostic modality in differentiating between benign and malignant lymph nodes and can potentially reduce unnecessary fine-needle aspiration biopsies of benign nodes.