• 대한전자공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한전자공학회 2007년도 하계종합학술대회 논문집
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• pp.357-358
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• 2007

Contrast enhancement in the field of ultrasound imaging contributes to improve the accuracy of medical diagnosis by enhancing the visibility of ultrasound images. This paper proposes a contrast enhancement method that improves the contrast of ultrasound images both globally and locally by fusing global and adaptive contrast enhancement methods. Experimental results show that our approach yields more competitive results than the existing global and adaptive contrast enhancement methods in enhancing the visibility of ultrasound images.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• 제64권6호
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• pp.933-943
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• 2021

Objective : Percutaneous pedicle screw (PPS) fixation is a needle based procedure that requires fluoroscopic image guidance. Consequently, radiation exposure is inevitable for patients, surgeons, and operation room staff. We hypothesize that reducing the production of radiation emission will result in reduced radiation exposure for everyone in the operation room. Research was performed to evaluate reduction of radiation exposure by modifying imaging manner and mode of radiation source. Methods : A total of 170 patients (680 screws) who underwent fusion surgery with PPS fixation from September 2019 to March 2020 were analyzed in this study. Personal dosimeters (Polimaster Ltd.) were worn at the collar outside a lead apron to measure radiation exposure. Patients were assigned to four groups based on imaging manner of fluoroscopy and radiation modification (pulse mode with reduced dose) : continuous use without radiation modification (group 1, n=34), intermittent use without radiation modification (group 2, n=54), continuous use with radiation modification (group 3, n=26), and intermittent use with radiation modification (group 4, n=56). Post hoc Tukey Honest significant difference test was used for individual comparisons of radiation exposure/screw and fluoroscopic time/screw. Results : The average radiation exposure/screw was 71.45±45.75 µSv/screw for group 1, 18.77±11.51 µSv/screw for group 2, 19.58±7.00 µSv/screw for group 3, and 4.26±2.89 µSv/screw for group 4. By changing imaging manner from continuous multiple shot to intermittent single shot, 73.7% radiation reduction was achieved in the no radiation modification groups (groups 1, 2), and 78.2% radiation reduction was achieved in the radiation modification groups (groups 3, 4). Radiation source modification from continuous mode with standard dose to pulse mode with reduced dose resulted in 72.6% radiation reduction in continuous imaging groups (groups 1, 3) and 77.3% radiation reduction in intermittent imaging groups (groups 2, 4). The average radiation exposure/screw was reduced 94.1% by changing imaging manner and modifying radiation source from continuous imaging with standard fluoroscopy setting (group 1) to intermittent imaging with modified fluoroscopy setting (group 4). A total of 680 screws were reviewed postoperatively, and 99.3% (675) were evaluated as pedicle breach grade 0 (<2 mm). Conclusion : The average radiation exposure/screw for a spinal surgeon can be reduced 94.1% by changing imaging manner and modifying radiation source from real-time imaging with standard dose to intermittent imaging with modified dose. These modifications can be instantly applied to any procedure using fluoroscopic guidance and may reduce the overall radiation exposure of spine surgeons.

• 한국방송∙미디어공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국방송공학회 2009년도 IWAIT
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• pp.368-372
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• 2009

Pin-hole model has been widely used as a robust tool for easily understanding how to obtain a stereo image and how to present the depth-cue to an observer in stereoscopy. However, most of the processes to analyze depth cue in stereoscopy are performed that a stereo image is taken by camera model practically but depth cue of the image is analyzed by pin-hole model. Therefore, the result of depth cues by the process to be uncorrected. The reason of the uncorrected depth cue is led to the image distances of camera model due to variable focused object distances, and it makes a depth distortion. In this paper, we tried to show the contradiction such as occurring depth distortion in the process which the pin-hole model is used to analyze depth cue despite practical camera model is used in stereoscopy, and we presents the method to overcome the contradiction.

• 대한자기공명의과학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한자기공명의과학회 2002년도 제7차 학술대회 초록집
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• pp.106-106
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• 2002

Purpose： The purposes of our study are (1) to develop a brain phantom which can be used for multimodal image registration, (2) to evaluate the accuracy of image registration with the home-made phantom. Method： A brain phantom which could be used for image registration technique of CT-MR and CT-SPECT images using chamfer matching was developed. The brain phantom was specially designed to obtain imaging dataset of CT, MR, and SPECT. The phantom had an external frame with 4 N-shaped pipes filled with acryl rods for CT, MR imaging and Pb rods for SPECT imaging. 8 acrylic pipes were inserted into the empty space of the brain phantom to be imaged for geometric evaluation of the matching. Accuracy of image fusion was assessed by the comparison between the center points of the section of N-shaped bars in the external frame and the inserted pipes of the phantom. Technique with partially transparent, mixed images using color on gray was used for visual assessment of the image registration process.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• 제51권3호
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• pp.313-321
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• 2021

Ankylosis of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is a disabling disease resulting from fibrous or bony fusion of the mandibular condyle and the glenoid fossa. Early diagnosis and surgical treatment are essential to prevent facial deformity and other complications. Conventional radiography has limitations in demonstrating the true extent of ankylosis. It is important for surgeons to be aware of the size and degree of bony ankylosis in order to perform complete resection of the ankylotic mass. In addition, a detailed evaluation of the relationship with adjacent vital structures such as the internal maxillary artery, inferior alveolar nerve canal, external auditory canal, and skull base are crucial to avoid iatrogenic injury. Multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) is the current imaging modality of choice for preoperative assessments. Herein, the authors propose a structured CT reporting template for TMJ ankylosis to strengthen the value of the preoperative imaging report and to reduce the rates of intraoperative complications and recurrence.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권6호
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• pp.2057-2062
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• 2024

Among photon counting detector (PCD)-based technologies, the K-edge subtraction (KES) method has a very high material decomposition efficiency. Yet, since the increase in noise in the X-ray image to which the KES method is applied is inevitable, research on image quality improvement is essential. Here, we modeled a block-matching and 3D filtering (BM3D) algorithm and applied it to PCD-based X-ray images with the improved KES (IKES) method. For PCD modeling, Monte Carlo simulation was used, and a phantom composed of iodine substances with different concentrations was designed. The IKES method was modeled by adding a log term to KES, and the X-ray image used for subtraction was obtained by applying the 3.0 keV range based on the K-edge region of iodine. As a result, the IKES image using the BM3D algorithm showed the lowest normalized noise power spectrum value. In addition, we confirmed that the contrast-to-noise ratio and no-reference-based evaluation results when the BM3D algorithm was applied to the IKES image were improved by 29.36 % and 20.56 %, respectively, compared to the noisy image. In conclusion, we demonstrated that the IKES imaging technique using a PCD-based detector and the BM3D algorithm fusion technique were very efficient for X-ray imaging.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• 제48권4호
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• pp.335-341
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• 2010

Objective : Anterior cervical corpectomy with fusion (ACF) or laminoplasty may be associated with substantial number of complications for treating multilevel cervical ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) with significant cord compression. For more safe decompression and stabilization in multilevel cervical OPLL with prominent cord compression, we propose circumferential cervical surgery (selective ACF and laminoplasty) based on our favorable experience. Methods : Twelve patients with cervical myelopathy underwent circumferential cervical surgery and all patients showed multilevel OPLL with Signal change of the spinal cord on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A retrospective review of clinical, radiological. and surgical data was conducted. Results : There were 9 men and 3 women with mean age of 56.7 years and a mean follow up period of 15.6 months. The average corpectomy level was 1.16 and laminoplasty level was 4.58. The average Japanese Orthopedic Association score for recovery was 5.1 points and good clinical results were obtained in 11 patients (92%) (p < 0.05). The average space available for the cord improved from 58.2% to 87.9% and the average Cobb's angle changed from 7.63 to 12.27 at 6 months after operation without failure of fusion (p < 0.05). Average operation time was 8.36 hours, with an estimated blood loss of 760 mL and duration of bed rest of 2.0 days. There were no incidences of significant surgical complications, including wound infection. Conclusion : Although the current study examined a small sample with relatively short-term follow-up periods, our study results demonstrate that circumferential cervical surgery is considered favorable for safety and effectiveness in multilevel OPLL with prominent cord compression.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• 제13권10호
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• pp.5179-5196
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• 2019

To explore an effective non-invasion medical imaging diagnostics approach for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we propose a method based on adopting the multiple technologies with the multi-parametric data fusion, transfer learning, and multi-scale deep feature extraction. Firstly, to make full use of complementary and enhancing the contribution of different modalities viz. multi-parametric MRI images in the lesion diagnosis, we propose a data-level fusion strategy. Secondly, based on the fusion data as the input, the multi-scale residual neural network with SPP (Spatial Pyramid Pooling) is utilized for the discriminative feature representation learning. Thirdly, to mitigate the impact of the lack of training samples, we do the pre-training of the proposed multi-scale residual neural network model on the natural image dataset and the fine-tuning with the chosen multi-parametric MRI images as complementary data. The comparative experiment results on the dataset from the clinical cases show that our proposed approach by employing the multiple strategies achieves the highest accuracy of 0.847±0.023 in the classification problem on the HCC differentiation. In the problem of discriminating the HCC lesion from the non-tumor area, we achieve a good performance with accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and AUC (area under the ROC curve) being 0.981±0.002, 0.981±0.002, 0.991±0.007 and 0.999±0.0008, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• 제62권4호
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• pp.476-486
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• 2019

Objective : The functional information of $^{11}C$-methionine positron emission tomography (MET-PET) images can be applied for Gamma knife radiosurgery (GKR) and its image quality may affect defining the tumor. This study conducted the phantom-based evaluation for geometric accuracy and functional characteristic of diagnostic MET-PET image co-registered with stereotactic image in Leksell $GammaPlan^{(R)}$ (LGP) and also investigated clinical application of these images in metastatic brain tumors. Methods : Two types of cylindrical acrylic phantoms fabricated in-house were used for this study : the phantom with an array-shaped axial rod insert and the phantom with different sized tube indicators. The phantoms were mounted on the stereotactic frame and scanned using computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and PET system. Three-dimensional coordinate values on co-registered MET-PET images were compared with those on stereotactic CT image in LGP. MET uptake values of different sized indicators inside phantom were evaluated. We also evaluated the CT and MRI co-registered stereotactic MET-PET images with MR-enhancing volume and PET-metabolic tumor volume (MTV) in 14 metastatic brain tumors. Results : Imaging distortion of MET-PET was maintained stable at less than approximately 3% on mean value. There was no statistical difference in the geometric accuracy according to co-registered reference stereotactic images. In functional characteristic study for MET-PET image, the indicator on the lateral side of the phantom exhibited higher uptake than that on the medial side. This effect decreased as the size of the object increased. In 14 metastatic tumors, the median matching percentage between MR-enhancing volume and PET-MTV was 36.8% on PET/MR fusion images and 39.9% on PET/CT fusion images. Conclusion : The geometric accuracy of the diagnostic MET-PET co-registered with stereotactic MR in LGP is acceptable on phantom-based study. However, the MET-PET images could the limitations in providing exact stereotactic information in clinical study.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• 제24권11호
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• pp.1102-1113
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• 2023

Objective: To elucidate the use of radiological studies, including nuclear medicine, and biopsy for the diagnosis and staging of prostate cancer (PCA) in clinical practice and understand the current status of PCA in Asian countries via an international survey. Materials and Methods: The Asian Prostate Imaging Working Group designed a survey questionnaire with four domains focused on prostate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), other prostate imaging, prostate biopsy, and PCA backgrounds. The questionnaire was sent to 111 members of professional affiliations in Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan who were representatives of their working hospitals, and their responses were analyzed. Results: This survey had a response rate of 97.3% (108/111). The rates of using 3T scanners, antispasmodic agents, laxative drugs, and prostate imaging-reporting and data system reporting for prostate MRI were 21.6%-78.9%, 22.2%-84.2%, 2.3%-26.3%, and 59.5%-100%, respectively. Respondents reported using the highest b-values of 800-2000 sec/mm² and fields of view of 9-30 cm. The prostate MRI examinations per month ranged from 1 to 600, and they were most commonly indicated for biopsy-naïve patients suspected of PCA in Japan and Singapore and staging of proven PCA in Korea and Taiwan. The most commonly used radiotracers for prostate positron emission tomography are prostate-specific membrane antigen in Singapore and fluorodeoxyglucose in three other countries. The most common timing for prostate MRI was before biopsy (29.9%). Prostate-targeted biopsies were performed in 63.8% of hospitals, usually by MRI-ultrasound fusion approach. The most common presentation was localized PCA in all four countries, and it was usually treated with radical prostatectomy. Conclusion: This survey showed the diverse technical details and the availability of imaging and biopsy in the evaluation of PCA. This suggests the need for an educational program for Asian radiologists to promote standardized evidence-based imaging approaches for the diagnosis and staging of PCA.