• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.189-196
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• 2012

Purpose: The sufficiency of skin dose and the reemergence of patient set-up position to the success of skin cancer radiation treatment is a very important element. But the conventional methods to increase the skin dose were used to vacuum cushion, bolus and water tank have several weak points. For this reason, we producted Foxtail Millet Vacuum Cushion and evaluated the efficiency of the Foxtail Millet Vacuum Cushion in skin cancer Radiation treatment. Materials and Methods: We measured absolute dose for 3 materials (Foxtail Millet Vacuum Cushion, bolus and solid water phantom) and compared each dose distribution. We irradiated 6 MV 100 MU photon radiation to every material of 1 cm, 2 cm, 3 cm thickness at three times. We measured absolute dose and compared dose distribution. Finally we inspected the CT simulation and radiation therapy planing using the Foxtail Millet Vacuum Cushion. Results: Absolute dose of Foxtail Millet Vacuum Cushion was similar to absolute dose of bolus and solid water phantom's result in each thickness. it Showed only the difference of 0.1~0.2% between each material. Also the same result in dose distribution comparison. About 97% of the dose distribution was within the margin of error in the prescribed ranges ($100{\pm}3%$), and achieved the enough skin dose (Gross Tumor Volume dose : $100{\pm}5%$) in radiation therapy planing. Conclusion: We evaluated important fact that Foxtail Millet Vacuum Cushion is no shortage of time to replace the soft tissue equivalent material and normal vacuum cushion at the low energy radiation transmittance. Foxtail Millet Vacuum Cushion can simultaneously achieve the enough skin dose in radiation therapy planing with maintaining normal vacuum cushion' function. Therefore as above We think that Foxtail Millet Vacuum Cushion is very useful in skin cancer radiation treatment.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.93-102
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• 2007

Purpose: Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) provides a lower dose and cost alternative to conventional CT, promising to revolutionize the practice of oral and maxillofacial radiology. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the absorbed and effective doses of Implagraphy and VCT (Vatech Co., Hwasung, Korea) and compare them with those of panoramic radiography. Materials and Methods: Thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) chips were placed at 27 sites throughout the layers of Female ART Head and Neck Phantom for dosimetry. Implagraphy, VCT units, and Planmeca Proline XC panoramic unit were used for radiation exposures. Radiation weighted doses and effective doses were measured and calculated using 1990 and 2005 ICRP tissue weighting factors. Results: Effective doses in Sv (ICRP 2005, ICRP 1990) were 90.19, 61.62 for Implagraphy at maxillay molar area, 123.20, 90.02 for Implagraphy at mandibular molar area, 183.55, 139.26 for VCT and 40.92, 27.16 for panoramic radiography. Conclusion: Effective doses for VCT and Implagraphy were only about 2.2 to 4.5 times greater than those for panoramic radiography. VCT and Implagraphy, CBCT machines recently developed in Korea, showed moderately low effective doses.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.307-313
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is that in coronary artery angiography computed tomography (coronary CTA), to gain high quality of image and to use low dose radiation by administrating normal saline and converting the mode of scanning heart rate (HR) characteristics before infusing contrast media. All patients data (total specimens: 200, male: 108, female: 92) were measured by using appropriate mode of scanning the heart rate (HR) after injection of saline. in addition we measured radiation dose (CTDIvol, effective dose) in all examinations. CT number and noise, and blurring of coronary artery (proximal RCA, middle RCA, proximal LCA) were measured and compared. The result of this study after injection of saline, mean heart rate was decreased about $4.8{\pm}0.3bpm$ (beats per minute). 33 patients (13%) got converting scan mode due to reducing heart rate (HR). In prospective gating mode, radiation dose were measured less $6.0{\pm}1.0mSv$ (54.1%) than retrospective gating mode. Also showed a significant difference in heart rate decrease in image evaluation.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.147-151
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• 2016

Tibial defect, or fracture is very routine musculoskeletal case which brings fully uncomfortable and painful situations to patient. Moreover, it has long hospitalization period because of its risk of non-union. There are many studies using ultrasound, vibration, and laser for bone regeneration to figure out fast bone healing. Among them, Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) is already known that it is very easy to treat and may have positive effect for bone regeneration. However, LLLT has uncertain energy dose because of scattering and absorption of laser in tissue. In this study, we used interstitial LLLT to treat tibial defect in animal study. The Interstitial LLLT can overcome some limitations caused by laser scattering or absorption in tissue medium. The results were evaluated using u-CT which can calculate X-ray attenuation coefficient and bone volume of bone defect area. These results showed that interstitial LLLT may affect fast bone healing process in early phase.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.473-480
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• 2021

This study was purpose to method that applies for improving the image quality in CT and X-ray scan, especially in the lung region. Also, we researched the parameters of the image before and after applying for Histogram Equalization (HE) such as mean, median values in the histogram. These techniques are mainly used for all type of medical images such as for Chest X-ray, Low-Dose Computed Tomography (CT). These are also used to intensify tiny anatomies like vessels, lung nodules, airways and pulmonary fissures. The proposed techniques consist of two main steps using the MATLAB software (R2021a). First, the technique should apply for the process of normalization for improving the basic image more correctly. In the next, the technique actively rearranges the intensity of the image contrast. Second, the Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) method was used for enhancing small details, textures and local contrast of the image. As a result, this paper shows the modern and improved techniques of HE and some advantages of the technique on the traditional HE. Therefore, this paper concludes that various techniques related to the HE can be helpful for many processes, especially image pre-processing for Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL).

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.66 no.6
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• pp.942-948
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• 2017

Ray-tracing based method for computing projection image calculates the exact amounts of the intersection between voxels and a ray. Among several different implementations of the ray tracing based methods, Siddon's method is the earliest one. Later faster implementation such as Jacobs's method, Zhao's method, were investigated. To our knowledge, Zhao's method is the fastest one among these. We improve the speed of the Zhao's method by predicting the number of the same intersection length between voxel and a ray. In our experiment, the proposed method showed significantly faster computation speed than Zhao's method.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.161-166
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• 2006

Purpose: Recently, the incidence of early gastric cancer (EGC) patients is rapidly increased in Korea. However, they're often not perceptible by surgical palpation or inspection. The aim of this study is 1) to develope a software that can locate the tumor and measure the mucosal distance from an anatomic landmark to the tumor using CT gastrography and 2) to compare the distance measured by the developed software with the distance measured by the pathologic findings. Materials and Methods: Between January 2004 and September 2005, sixty patients (male=45, female=15, mean 57.8 years old) estimated for EGC with preoperative CT scans and undergone gastrectomies in Kyungpook National University Hospital were enrolled in this study. Preoperative CT scans were performed after insufflations of room air via 5 Fr NG tube. The scans included the following parameters: (slice thickness/reconstruction interval: 0.625 mm, kVp: 120, mAs: 200). 3D volume rendering and measurement of the surface distance from the pylorus to the EGC were performed using the developed software. Results: The average difference between the lesion to pylorus distances measured from pathologic specimens and CT gastrography was $5.3{\pm}2.9\;mm(range,\;0{\sim}23\;mm)$. The lesion to pylorus distance measured from CT gastrography was well correlated with that measured from the pathologic specimens (r=0.9843, P<0.001). Conclusion: These results suggest that the surface distance from an anatomic landmark to the EGC can be measured accurately by CT gastrography. This technique could be used for preoperative localization of early gastric carcinomas to determine the optimal extent of surgical resection.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.403-407
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• 2018

Currently, the highest cancer death rate in Korea is lung cancer, which is a typical cancer that is difficult to detect early. Low-dose chest CT is being used for early detection, which has a greater lung cancer diagnosis rate of about three times than regular chest x-ray images. However, low-dose chest CT not only significantly reduces image resolution but also has a weak signal and is sensitive to noise. Also, air filled lungs are low-density organs and the presence of noise can significantly affect early diagnosis of cancer. This study used Visual C++ to set a circle inside a large circle with a density of 2.0, with a density of 1.0, which is the density of water, in which five small circle of mathematics have different densities. Gaussian noise was generated by 1%, 2%, 3%, and 4% respectively to determine the effect of noise on the mean value, the standard deviation value, and the relative noise ratio(SNR). In areas where the density difference between the large and small circles was greatest in the event of 1 % noise, the SNR in the area with the greatest variation in noise was 4.669, and in areas with the lowest density difference, the SNR was 1.183. In addition, the SNR values can be seen to be high if the same results are obtained for both positive and negative densities. Quality was also clearly visible when the density difference was large, and if the noise level was increased, the SNR was reduced to significantly affect the noise. Low-density organs or organs in areas of similar density to cancers, will have significant noise effects, and the effects of density differences on the probability of noise will affect diagnosis.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.165-171
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• 1991

Two patients with confirmed cerebral cysticercosis were treated with Albendazole(Zentel$^{(R)}$) at a daily dose of 1.200mg t.i.d. for 14 consecutive days and evaluated for tolerance and therapeutic effects. First case was 29 year old male, who had experience of 4 times of grand mal seizures during 1 year period before administration in Korea University Hospital. His chief complaints were seizure and moderate degree headache. He also had 4 subcutaneous nodules on the thorax, right and left upper arms. Among them one nodule was biopsied and confirmed microscopically as Cysticercus cellulosae hominis. Computed tomography of the brain showed four round low density lesions in right postero-frontal area, sylvian area, intra-occipital area and left parietal area. Second case was 48 year old male, who also had experience of seizures at 3 years, 5 months and 3 months before administration. In this case, no subcutaneous nodules and no headaches were noted. Brain CT showed four round low density lesions in right postero-parietal area and temporo-parietal area, and left temporo-parietal and parietal area. Serum antibody against cystic fluid antigen was detected by ELISA in both cases. The efficacy of the treatment of cerebral cysticercosis was assessed by the frequency of convulsions after treatment for 22 months follow-up. by the disappearance of the densities in cystic lesions at brain CT for 6 months follow-up, and disappearance of subcutaneous nodules, headache and so on. As the results, all low density lesions in both cases were disappeared in films of brain CT, and 4 nodules in first case were also disappeared. No more seizure and complain of headache occurred during the last 22 months after treatment in both cases. Post-treatment complete blood count and liver function test revealed no remarkable change compared to pre-treatment test. In the nations of Latin America, the physicians do not initially recommended the simultaneous administrations of steroids, reserving them only for patients whom the adverse reactions such as severe headache and/or seizures are occurred. According to them, in most patients these symptoms are controlled with aspirin and symptomatic drugs. But our experience using praziquantel is different, and most cerebral cysticercosis patients who takes PZQ had complaint of severe headache and sometimes seizure. So we simultaneously used dexamethasone as 6mg q.i.d. for 14 consecutive days and 6 days tapering thereafter in both cases for prevention of reactions produced by the host in response to the deaths of the parasites. As the conclusion, albendazole is effective in patients who presented cerebral cysticercosis and albendazole may help in the control of cysticercosis.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.102-112
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• 2008

We developed a high-resolution micro-CT system based on rotational gantry and flat-panel detector for live mouse imaging. This system is composed primarily of an x-ray source with micro-focal spot size, a CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) flat panel detector coupled with Csl (TI) (thallium-doped cesium iodide) scintillator, a linearly moving couch, a rotational gantry coupled with positioning encoder, and a parallel processing system for image data. This system was designed to be of the gantry-rotation type which has several advantages in obtaining CT images of live mice, namely, the relative ease of minimizing the motion artifact of the mice and the capability of administering respiratory anesthesia during scanning. We evaluated the spatial resolution, image contrast, and uniformity of the CT system using CT phantoms. As the results, the spatial resolution of the system was approximately the 11.3 cycles/mm at 10% of the MTF curve, and the radiation dose to the mice was 81.5 mGy. The minimal resolving contrast was found to be less than 46 CT numbers on low-contrast phantom imaging test. We found that the image non-uniformity was approximately 70 CT numbers at a voxel size of ${\sim}55{\times}55{\times}X100\;{\mu}^3$. We present the image test results of the skull and lung, and body of the live mice.