• Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.145-149
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• 2023

BACKGROUND: ¹⁸F-sodium fluoride positron emission tomography/computed tomography (¹⁸F-NaF PET/CT) has been proven to be useful in identification of microcalcifications, which are stimulated by inflammation. Blood speckle imaging (BSI) is a new imaging technology used for tracking the flow of blood cells using transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). We evaluated the relationship between turbulent flow identified by BSI and inflammatory activity of the aortic valve (AV) as indicated by the ¹⁸F-NaF uptake index in moderate aortic stenosis (AS) patients. METHODS: This study enrolled 18 moderate AS patients diagnosed within the past 6 months. BSI within the aortic root was acquired using long-axis view TEE. The duration of laminar flow and the turbulent flow area ratio were calculated by BSI to demonstrate the degree of turbulence. The maximum and mean standardized uptake values (SUVmax, SUVmean) and the total microcalcification burden (TMB) as measured by ¹⁸F-NaF PET/CT were used to demonstrate the degree of inflammatory activity in the AV region. RESULTS: The mean SUVmean, SUVmax, and TMB were 1.90 ± 0.79, 2.60 ± 0.98, and 4.20 ± 2.18 mL, respectively. The mean laminar flow period and the turbulent area ratio were 116.1 ± 61.5 msec and 0.48 ± 0.32. The correlation between SUVmax and turbulent flow area ratio showed the most positive and statistically significant correlation, with a Pearson's correlation coefficient (R²) of 0.658 and a p-value of 0.014. CONCLUSIONS: The high degree of trans-aortic turbulence measured by BSI was correlated with severe AV inflammation.

• Toxicological Research
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• v.29 no.1
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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.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.804-810
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• 2009

Purpose : We investigated whether ictal single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with prolonged injection of technetium-99m (99mTc) ethyl cysteinate dimer during repeated spasms can localize the epileptogenic foci in children with infantile spasms. Methods : Fourteen children with infantile spasms (11 boys, 3 girls; mean age, $2.2{\pm}1.3$ years) were examined. When a cluster of spasms was detected during video electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring, $^{99m}Tc$ ethyl cysteinate dimer was slowly and continuously injected for 2 minutes to determine the presence of ictal SPECT. For 7 children, the ictal and interictal SPECT images were visually analyzed, while for the remaining 7 children, the SPECT images were analyzed using the subtraction ictal SPECT coregistered to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (SISCOM) technique. Subsequently, we analyzed the association between the ictal SPECT findings and those of other diagnostic modalities such as EEG, MRI, and positron emission tomography (PET). Results : Increase in cerebral blood flow on ictal SPECT involved the epileptogenic foci in 10 cases6 cases analyzed by visual assessment and 4 analyzed by the SISCOM technique. The ictal SPECT and video-EEG findings showed moderate agreement (Kappa=0.57; 95% confidence interval, 0.18-0.96). Conclusion : Ictal SPECT with prolonged injection of a tracer could provide supplementary information to localize the epileptogenic foci in infantile spasms.

• Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.152-158
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• 2002

Background & Purpose:Neuropsychological disorders after traumatic brain injury(TBI) are poorly correlated with structural lesions detected by structural neuroimaging techniques such as computed tomography(CT) scan or magnetic resonance imaging(MRI). It is well known that patients with TBI have cognitive and behavioral disorders even in the absence of structural lesions of the brain. This study investigated whether there are abnormalities of regional cerebral blood flow(rCBF) in TBI patients without structural abnormality on MRI, using technetium 99m ethyl cysteinate dimer(Tc-99m-ECD) single photon emission computed tomography(SPECT) scans. Materials and Methods:Twenty-eight TBI patients without structural abnormality on MRI(mild, n=13/moderate, n=9/severe, n=6) and fifteen normal controls were scanned by SPECT. A voxel-based analysis using statistical parametric mapping(SPM) was performed to compare the patients with the normal controls. Results:rCBF was reduced in the right uncus and the right lateral orbitofrontal gyrus in the TBI patients. However, no increase of rCBF was noted in the patients in comparison to the normal controls. Conclusions:These results suggest that the TBI patients, even in the absence of structural lesion of the brain, may have dysfunction of the brain, particularly of the orbitofrontal and anterior pole of the temporal cortex. They also suggest that SPECT can be a useful method to identify brain dysfunctions in combination with structural brain imaging and neuropsychological tests.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.79-85
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to measure contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and signal to noise ratio (SNR) according to change of reconstruction from region of interest (ROI) in breast positron emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT), and to analyze the CNR and SNR statically. We examined images of breast PET-CT of 100 patients in a University-affiliated hospital, Seoul, Korea. Each patient's image of breast PET-CT were calculated by using ImageJ. Differences of CNR and SNR among four reconstruction algorithms were tested by SPSS Statistics21 ANOVA test for there was statistical significance (p<0.05). We have analysis socio-demographical variables, CNR and SNR according to reconstruction images, 95% confidence according to CNR and SNR of reconstruction and difference in a mean of CNR and SNR. SNR results, with the quality of distributions in the order of PSF_TOF, Iterative and Iterative-TOF, FBP-TOF. CNR, with the quality of distributions in the order of PSF_TOF, Iterative and Iterative-TOF, FBP-TOF. CNR and SNR of PET-CT reconstruction methods of the breast would be useful to evaluate breast diseases.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.776-780
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• 2017

To avoid imaging artifacts and interpretation mistakes, an improvement of the uniformity in gamma camera systems is a very important point. We can expect excellent uniformity using cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) photon counting detector (PCD) because of the direct conversion of the gamma rays energy into electrons. In addition, the uniformity performance such as integral uniformity (IU), differential uniformity (DU), scatter fraction (SF), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) varies according to the energy window setting. In this study, we compared a PCD and conventional scintillation detector with respect to the energy windows (5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%) using a $^{99m}Tc$ gamma source with a Geant4 Application for Tomography Emission simulation tool. The gamma camera systems used in this work are a CZT PCD and NaI(Tl) conventional scintillation detector with a 1-mm thickness. According to the results, although the IU and DU results were improved with the energy window, the SF and CNR results deteriorated with the energy window. In particular, the uniformity for the PCD was higher than that of the conventional scintillation detector in all cases. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that the uniformity of the CZT PCD was higher than that of the conventional scintillation detector.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.8
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• pp.2367-2370
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• 2014

"Cat's eye"-shaped $[^{57}Co]CoO@SiO_2$ core-shell nanostructure was prepared by the reverse microemulsion method combined with radioisotope technique to investigate a potential imaging agent for a single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) in nuclear medicine. The core cobalt oxide nanorods were obtained by thermal decomposition of $Co-(oleate)_2$ precursor from radio isotope Co-57 containing cobalt chloride and sodium oleate. The $SiO_2$ coating on the surface of the core cobalt oxide nanorods was produced by hydrolysis and a condensation reaction of tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) in the water phase of the reverse microemulsion system. In vivo test, micro SPECT image was acquired with nude mice after 30 min of intravenous injection of $[^{57}Co]CoO@SiO_2$ core-shell nanostructure.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.55-62
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• 1983

In 16 volunteers without clinical or laboratory evidence of liver disease, liver volume was determined using single-photon emission computed tomography(ECT). This technique provided excellent object contrast between the liver and its surroundings and permitted calculation of liver volume without geometric assumptions about the liver's configuration. Reproducibility of results was satisfactory, with a root-me an-square error of less than 2% between duplicate measurements in 16 individuals. The volume measurements were validated by the use of phantoms.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.10
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• pp.3943-3948
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• 2022

Single-photon emission computed tomography is one of the reliable pin-by-pin verification techniques for spent-fuel assemblies. One of the challenges with this technique is to increase the total fuel assembly verification speed while maintaining high verification accuracy. The aim of the present study, therefore, was to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm-based tomographic image analysis technique for partial-defect verification of fuel assemblies. With the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation technique, a tomographic image dataset consisting of 511 fuel-rod patterns of a 3 × 3 fuel assembly was generated, and with these images, the VGG16, GoogLeNet, and ResNet models were trained. According to an evaluation of these models for different training dataset sizes, the ResNet model showed 100% pattern estimation accuracy. And, based on the different tomographic image qualities, all of the models showed almost 100% pattern estimation accuracy, even for low-quality images with unrecognizable fuel patterns. This study verified that an AI model can be effectively employed for accurate and fast partial-defect verification of fuel assemblies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.1527-1532
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• 2023

The noise reduction algorithm using the non-local means (NLM) approach is very efficient in nuclear medicine imaging. In this study, the applicability of the NLM noise reduction algorithm in single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) images with a brain phantom and the optimization of the NLM algorithm by changing the smoothing factors according to various reconstruction methods are investigated. Brain phantom images were reconstructed using filtered back projection (FBP) and ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM). The smoothing factor of the NLM noise reduction algorithm determined the optimal coefficient of variation (COV) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) results at a value of 0.020 in the FBP and OSEM reconstruction methods. We confirmed that the FBP- and OSEM-based SPECT images using the algorithm applied with the optimal smoothing factor improved the COV and CNR by 66.94% and 8.00% on average, respectively, compared to those of the original image. In conclusion, an optimized smoothing factor was derived from the NLM approach-based algorithm in brain SPECT images and may be applicable to various nuclear medicine imaging techniques in the future.