• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.122-127
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• 2010

Purpose: The Xpress3.$cardiac^{TM}$ which is a kind of wide beam reconstruction (WBR) method developed by UltraSPECT (Haifa, Israel) enables the acquisition of at quarter time while maintaining image quality. The purpose of this study is to investigate the usefulness of WBR method for decreasing scan times and to compare to it with filtered back projection (FBP), which is the method routinely used. Materials and Methods: Phantom and clinical studies were performed. The anthropomorphic torso phantom was made on an equality with counts from patient's body. The Tl-201 concentrations in the compartments were 74 kBq (2 ${\mu}Ci$)/cc in myocardium, 11.1 kBq (0.3 ${\mu}Ci$)/cc in soft tissue, and 2.59 kBq (0.07 ${\mu}Ci$)/cc in lung. The non-gated Tl-201 myocardial perfusion SPECT data were acquired with the phantom. The former study was scanned for 50 seconds per frame with FBP method, and the latter study was acquired for 13 seconds per frame with WBR method. Using the Xeleris ver. 2.0551, full width at half maximum (FWHM) and average image contrast were compared. In clinical studies, we analyzed the 30 patients who were examined by Tl-201 gated myocardial perfusion SPECT in department of nuclear medicine at Asan Medical Center from January to April 2010. The patients were imaged at full time (50 second per frame) with FBP algorithm and again quarter-time (13 second per frame) with the WBR algorithm. Using the 4D MSPECT (4DM), Quantitative Perfusion SPECT (QPS), and Quantitative Gated SPECT (QGS) software, the summed stress score (SSS), summed rest score (SRS), summed difference score, end-diastolic volume (EDV), end-systolic volume (ESV) and ejection fraction (EF) were analyzed for their correlations and statistical comparison by paired t-test. Results: As a result of the phantom study, the WBR method improved FWHM more than about 30% compared with FBP method (WBR data 5.47 mm, FBP data 7.07 mm). And the WBR method's average image contrast was also higher than FBP method's. However, in result of quantitative indices, SSS, SDS, SRS, EDV, ESV, EF, there were statistically significant differences from WBR and FBP(p<0.01). In the correlation of SSS, SDS, SRS, there were significant differences for WBR and FBP (0.18, 0.34, 0.08). But EDV, ESV, EF showed good correlation with WBR and FBP (0.88, 0.89, 0.71). Conclusion: From phantom study results, we confirmed that the WBR method reduces an acquisition time while improving an image quality compared with FBP method. However, we should consider significant differences in quantitative indices. And it needs to take an evaluation test to apply clinical study to find a cause of differences out between phantom and clinical results.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Biology
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• v.22
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• pp.54-62
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• 2004

We examined the impacts of anthyopogenic pollutant (benzo〔a〕pyrene) on the growth and photosynthesis of five marine phytoplankton species (Skeletonema costatum, Heterosigma akashiwo, Prorocentrum dentatum, P. minimum, Aknshiwo sanguinea), which are dominant in Korean coastal water. After the 72 h exposure to benzo〔a〕pyrene, the dramatic decrease in cell numbers was observed in the range of 1 to 10 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ for S. costatum, P. minimum, P. dentatum, whereas for A. sanguinea and H. akashiwo at the low concentrations 0.1 to 1 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ . Among the 5 phytoplankton species, the highest growth inhibition concentration ($IC_{50}$/) was 6.20 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ for P. minimum, followed by 2.14 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ for P. dentatum, 1.68 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ for S. costatum, 0.74 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ for H. akashiwo, 0.10 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ for A. sanguinea. The five species exposed to the low concentration of 1 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ were recovered after transferring to new media, but the species exposed to the high concentrations of 10 and 100 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ were not recovered, with the exception of P. minimum. Those results indicate that the thecate dinoflagellate P. minimum is most tolerant to the chemical and the athecate dinoflagellate A. sanguinea is not. Geneyally, the cell-specific photosynthetic capacity of H. akashiwo exposed to the low concentrations of 0.1 and 1 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ was higher than that of the cells in the control, whereas the cells exposed to the high concentrations of 5 and 10 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ showed the negligible photosynthetic level by the first few days of the experiment. In the case of the cells exposed to the concentration of 5 $\mu\textrm{g}$ L$^{-1}$ , after 12 days of the experiment the photosynthetic capacity was increased toward the end of the experiment. This indicates that H. akashiwo may utilize the benzo〔a〕pyrene as a carton source for its growth when exposed to low concentrations. Results suggest that anthropogenic pollutants such as benzo〔a〕pyrene may have significant influence on the succession of phytoplankton species composition and the primary production in coastal marine environments.