• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.621-628
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• 2021

Prior studies on frequency-related image quality analysis of intravascular ultrasound catheters are lacking both in Korea and abroad. Therefore, this study was conducted to prepare a standard for measuring the image quality using the program and to suggest a measuring method to researchers related to the quality analysis of intravascular ultrasound images. For the target, the vessel lumen size is 3.0 - 4.0 mm. Before using intravascular ultrasound, thoroughly clean the ultrasound catheter so that no air or foreign substances enter it. Normal vascular images and lesion vascular images of sufficiently dilated images were used. As a standard image acquisition method, the image of the end-systolic section, which has the best evaluation of vascular lesions when using intravascular ultrasound, was acquired retrospectively through the DCAS PACS program to set the standard. When setting the measurement method criteria, we proposed a standard setting method that corresponds to the concentric and eccentric circles of normal and lesion vessels. By applying this criterion, we proposed a method for measuring the lumen and lateral cavities of normal and lesion vessels of interest and background area. In conclusion, if the image quality of intravascular ultrasonography is measured through the method devised by these researchers, consistent quality measurement is possible regardless of the type of intravascular ultrasound catheter. Therefore, it is thought that it can be applied as a guideline for the actual image quality measurement method in the study related to intravascular ultrasound image quality.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.215-222
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• 2018

This paper reports the development and performance evaluation of a backend system for real-time IVUS (Intravascular Ultrasound) imaging. The developed backend system was designed to minimize the amount of logic and memory usage by means of efficient LUTs (Look-up Tables), and it was implemented in a single FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) without using external memory. This makes it possible to implement the backend system that is less expensive, smaller, and lighter. The accuracy of the backend system implemented was evaluated by comparing the output of the FPGA with the result computed using a MATLAB program implemented in the same way as the VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language) code. Based on the result of ex-vivo experiment using rabbit artery, the developed backend system was found to be suitable for real-time intravascular ultrasound imaging.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2018.05a
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• pp.79-81
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• 2018

혈관내 초음파(Intravascular Ultrasound, IVUS)는 혈관 내벽의 단면을 보여주는 검사 방법으로 관상 동맥 내의 내강, 죽상 경화반, 그리고 혈관벽의 변화에 관한 직접적이고 구체적인 정보를 제공한다. 본 논문에서는 IVUS 영상에서 내막과 외막을 추출하고 각 막의 지름을 자동적으로 추출하는 방법을 제안한다. 제안된 방법은 IVUS 영상에 Histogram Equalization 기법을 적용하여 명암 대비를 강조한 후에 퍼지 이진화 기법과 평균 이진화 기법을 각각 적용하여 내막과 외막을 추출하기 위해 이진화한다. 이진화된 내막과 외막의 각 영역 중에서 혈관내 초음파 영상 중심에서 가장 큰 영역의 정보를 이용하여 라벨링 기법을 적용하여 내막과 외막 영역을 추출하고 각 막의 지름을 계산한다. 제안된 방법을 IVUS 영상을 대상으로 실험한 결과, 내막과 외막의 지름이 비교적 정확히 추출되는 것을 실험을 통하여 확인하였다.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.880-890
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• 2010

The intrasvascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging technique is used to diagnose cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke. Recently, elasticity imaging methods have been investigated to diagnose blood clots attached to blood vessel intima. However, the IVUS imaging technique is an invasive method that requires a transducer to be inserted into blood vessel. In this paper, strain images are obtained of blood clots attached to blood vessel intima with data acquired from outside the blood vessel using a linear array transducer. In order to measure the displacement of blood vessel accurately, experimental data are acquired by steering ultrasound beams so that they can intersect the blood vessel wall at right angles. The acquired rf data are demodulated to the baseband. The resulting complex baseband signals are then processed by an autocorrelation algorithm to compute the blood vessel movement and thereby produce strain image. This proposed method is verified by experiments on a plastic blood vessel mimicking phantom. The efficacy of the proposed method was verified using a home-made blood vessel mimicking phantom. The blood vessel mimicking phantom was constructed by making a 6 mm diameter hollow cylinder inside it to simulate a blood vessel and adhering 2 mm thick soft plaque to the inner wall of the hollow cylinder. The RF data were acquired using a clinical ultrasound scanner (Accuvix XQ, Medison, Seoul. Korea) with a 7.5 MHz linear array transducer by steering ultrasound beams in steps of $1^{\circ}$ from $-40^{\circ}$ to $40^{\circ}$ for a total of 81 angles. Experimental results show that the plaque region near the blood vessel wall is softer than background tissue. Although the imaging region is restricted due to the limited range of angles for which scan lines are perpendicular to the wall, the feasibility of strain imaging is demonstrated.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.19B no.3
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• pp.201-208
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• 2012

Accurately segmenting lumen border in intravascular ultrasound images (IVUS) is very important to study vascular wall architecture for diagnosis of the cardiovascular diseases. After each of IVUS image is transformed to a polar coordinated image, initial points are detected using wavelet transform. Then, lumen border is initialized as the set of important points using non parametric probability density function and smoothing function by removing outlier initial points occurred by noises and artifacts. Finally, polynomial curve fitting is applied to obtain real lumen border using filtered important points. The evaluation of proposed method was performed with related method and the proposed method produced accurate lumen contour detection when compared to another method in most types of IVUS images.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.300-308
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• 2014

Photoacoustic imaging is a useful tool for the diagnosis of atherosclerosis because it is capable of providing anatomical and pathological information at the same time. A photoacoustic signal detector is a pivotal element to achieve high spatial resolution, so that it should have broadband spectrum with a high center frequency. Since a photoacoustic imaging probe is directly inserted into blood vessel to diagnose atherosclerosis, the total size of the photoacoustic signal detector should be less than 1 mm. The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that PVDF can be used as an active material for the photoacoustic signal detector with a high frequency and broadband characteristic. The photoacoustic signal detector developed in this study was a single element ultrasound transducer with an aperture of $0.5{\times}0.5mm$ and the total size of 1 mm. In the design stage, the natural focal depth was adjusted for an effective focal area to cover the region of interest, i.e., 1~5 mm in depth. This was because geometrical focusing could not be used due to the small aperture. Through a pulse-echo test, it was ascertained that the developed photoacoustic signal detector has the -6 dB bandwidth ranging between 40.1 and 112.8 MHz and the center frequency of 76.83 MHz.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Computer Information Conference
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• 2019.07a
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• pp.19-22
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• 2019

상완동맥은 어깨에서부터 팔꿈치까지 내려오는 상완골의 내측부에 존재하며 혈압을 측정할 때 사용되는 혈관이다. 이 혈관은 골절로 인해 찢어지거나, 또는 혈액순환에 문제가 생겨 혈관이 막히는 경우가 발생한다. 이러한 경우 혈관의 상태를 확인하기 위하여 색조 도플러 초음파 검사를 사용하지만, 사용자에 따라 영상을 통한 판단 기준이 다르다는 문제점이 발생한다. 따라서 본 논문에서는 FCM과 Fuzzy Decision Tree를 이용한 영상 처리를 통해 일관성 있는 판단기준을 세우기 위한 혈류의 속도를 제안한다. 색조 도플러 초음파 영상에서의 상완 동맥을 추출하여 기울기를 이용한 FCM 알고리즘을 통해 소속도를 추출한 뒤 퍼지 룰에 적용하여 의사 결정 트리로 등급을 분류하고 결과적으로 혈류 속도를 추출한다. 색조 도플러 초음파 영상에서 환자의 개인 정보를 보호하기 위해 개인 정보 영역을 제거하여 ROI 영역을 추출하고 ROI 영역을 이진화를 통하여 상완동맥이 있는 영역을 추출한다. 이진화 된 ROI 영역에서 혈관 영상의 혈류 방향으로의 무게중심을 설정하고 각각의 픽셀과 무게중심 선과의 거리를 이용하여 소속도를 추출한 후 FCM을 사용하여 최적의 기울기를 선정한다. FCM을 통해 추출한 최종 소속도를 이용하여 퍼지 룰에 적용한 뒤 계산된 T-norm과 소속도의 분산을 이용하여 의사 결정 트리를 형성 트리의 단말 노드들은 각 픽셀을 분류한다. 분류되어진 데이터들의 노드별 소속도 평균을 구한 뒤 디퍼지화를 통해 COG(Center of Gravity)를 계산한다. 마지막으로 그 값을 이용하여 혈류 속도에 영향을 미치는 정도를 계산한 뒤 최종 혈류의 속도를 제안한다.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.1514-1519
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• 2019

IVUS is an intra-operative imaging modality that facilitates observing and appraising the vessel wall structure of the human coronary arteries. IVUS is regularly used to locate the atherosclerosis lesions in the coronary arteries. Auto-segmentation of the vessel structure is important to detect the disorder of coronary artery. In this paper, we propose a simple strategy to extract Intima/Adventitia area effectively using fuzzy binarization from intravascular images. The proposed method apply fuzzy binarization to find the adventitia but apply average binarization to locate the intima since they have different homogeneity of pixel intensity comparing with the environment. In this paper, we demonstrate an effective auto-segmentation method for detecting the interior/exterior of the vessel walls by differentiating the fuzzy binarization result and average binarization result from IVUS image. Important statistics such as Intima-Media Thickness (IMT) or volume of a target area can be easily computed from result.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.238-246
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• 2017

High frequency ultrasound imaging typically suffers from low sensitivity due to the small aperture of high frequency transducers and shallow imaging depth due to the frequency-dependent attenuation of ultrasound. These limitations should be overcome to obtain high-frequency, high- resolution ultrasound images. One practical solution to the problems is a high-performance signal receiver capable of detecting a very small signal and amplifying the signal with minimal electronic noise addition. This paper reports a recently developed low-noise, wideband ultrasound receiver for high-frequency, high-resolution ultrasound imaging. The developed receiver has an amplification gain of up to 73 dB and a variable amplification gain range of 48 dB over an operating frequency of 80 MHz. Also, it has an amplification gain flatness of ${\pm}1dB$. Due to these high performances, the developed receiver has a signal-to-noise ratio of at least 8.4 dB and a contrast-to-noise ratio of at least 3.7 dB higher than commercial receivers.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.39-43
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• 2008

Purpose: There are various methods to diagnose hemangioma, such as ultrasonography (US), computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nuclear medicine. However, by development of SPECT imaging, the blood-pool scan using $^{99m}Tc$-labeled red blood cell has been used, because it was non-invasive and the most economical method. Therefore, in this study, we proposed that the usefulness of $^{99m}Tc$-RBC scan and SPECT of the head and neck to diagnose unlocated hemangiomas. Materials and Methods: $^{99m}Tc$-RBC scan and SPECT was performed on 6 patients with doubtful hemangioma (4 person, head; 1 person, neck; 1 person, another). We labeled radiopharmaceutical using modified in vivo method and then, centrifuged it to remove plasma. After a bolus injection of tracer, dynamic perfusion flow images were acquired. Then, anterior, posterior, both lateral static blood-pool images were obtained as early and 4 hours delayed. SPECT was progressed 64 projections per 30 seconds. Each image was interpreted by physicians, Nuclear medicine specialist, and technologist blinded to patient's data. Results: In 5 patients of all the radioactivity of doubtful site didn't change in flow images, but, in blood-pool, delayed and SPECT images, it was increased. So, it was a typical hemangioma finding. The size of lesion was over 2 cm, and it could discriminate as comparing to the delayed and SPECT imaging. On the other hand, in 1 patient, the radioactivity was increased in blood-pool images, but, not in delayed and SPECT images, so, it was proved no hemangioma. Conclusion: Using $^{99m}Tc$-RBC Scan and SPECT, we could diagnose the hemangiomas in head and neck, as well as, liver, more non-invasive, economical, and easy. Therefore, it considered that $^{99m}Tc$-RBC scan and SPECT would offer more useful information for diagnosis of hemangioma, rather than otherimaging such as US, CT, MRI.