• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.43 no.3 s.309
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• pp.78-84
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• 2006

Our study aimed at quantitative assessment of a cleft palate nose deformity condition by analyzing the following parameters gathered from a photographic image of a cleft palate patient: (1) angle difference between two nostril axes, (2) center of the nostril and distance between two centers, (3) overlapped area of two nostrils, and (4) the overlapped area ratio of the two nostrils. A regression equation of doctor's grades was obtained using the eight parameters. Three plastic surgeons gave us the glades for the each photographic image by to increments with maximum grade of 100. The average reproducibility of the grades given by the three plastic surgeons and the three laymen using the developed program was $10.8{\pm}4.6%\;and\;7.4{\pm}1.8%$, respectively. Kappa values representing the degree of consensus of the plastic surgeons and the three laymen were 0.43 and 0.83, respectively. Correlation coefficient of the grades evaluated by the surgeons and obtained by the regression equation was 0.642 and that of the grades by the surgeons and by the neural network was 0.798. In conclusion, the developed neural network model provided us better reproducibility, much better consensus, and better correlation than doctor's subjective evaluation in addition to objectiveness and easy application.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.81 no.1
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• pp.176-189
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• 2020

Purpose To evaluate the clinical efficacy of real-time sonoelastography (RTS) for the follow-up of congenital muscular torticollis, based on measurements of muscle elasticity. Materials and Methods Thirty-four infants (23 male, 11 female) with congenital sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle torticollis underwent ultrasonography and elastography between November 2012 and December 2014. We evaluated the thickness, morphology (mass-like, fusiform, or overall thickened shape), and echogenicity of the SCM muscle on grayscale images and color patterns (homogeneous blue, mixed green < 50% and ≥ 50%, and green to red) on elastography. Strain ratios were measured using Q-lab software. A clinician classified the degree of neck rotation and side flexion deficits using a 5-point grade system based on angles of neck rotation and side flexion. Correlations between the ultrasonography and clinical findings were evaluated by statistical analysis. Results Twenty-two infants had right and 12 had left SCM torticollis, respectively. Linear regression analysis showed that involved/contralateral SCM thickness differences, morphology, elasticity color scores, and strain ratios of the affected SCM muscles were significantly correlated with neck rotation and side flexion deficit scores (p < 0.05). The elasticity color score of the affected SCM muscle was the most significant factor. Conclusion RTS might provide a reliable means for evaluating and monitoring congenital muscular torticollis.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2020

The chest wall, an organ directly affected by environmental particles through respiration, consists of ribs, a pleural layer and intercostal muscles. To diagnose early and treat disease in this body part, it is important to visualize the details of the chest wall, but the structure of the pleural layer cannot be seen by chest computed tomography or ultrasound. On the other hand, optical coherence tomography (OCT), with a high spatial resolution, is suited to observe pleural-layer response to talc, one of the fine materials. However, intensity-based OCT is weak in providing information to distinguish the detailed structure of the chest wall, and cannot distinguish the reaction of the pleural layer from the change in the muscle by the talc. Polarization-sensitive OCT (PS-OCT) takes advantage of the fact that specific tissues like muscle, which have optical birefringence, change the backscattered light's polarization state. Moreover, the birefringence of muscle associated with the arrangement of myofilaments indicates the muscle's condition, by measuring retardation change. The PS-OCT image is interpreted from three major perspectives for talc-exposure chest-wall imaging: a thickened pleural layer, a separation between pleural layer and muscle, and a phase-retardation measurement around lesions. In this paper, a rabbit chest wall after talc pleurodesis is investigated by PS-OCT. The PS-OCT images visualize the pleural layer and muscle, respectively, and this system shows different birefringence of normal and damaged lesions. Also, an analyisis based on phase-retardation slope supports results from the PS-OCT image and histology.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.497-503
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• 2004

Numerical simulation of blood flow has been conducted based on real vessel geometries generated front DICOM medical images of abdominal and iliac bifurcated arteries of a healthy man. A program was developed to read cross sectional images of the three dimensional arteries and smoothly extract boundary coordinates of vessels. Commercial programs were employed for mesh generation and flow simulation. Pressures, velocities, and flow distributions were found to lie within normal physiological ranges. Peak velocity measured in the iliac artery by ultrasound was 20% smaller than that obtained by simulation. The trend of velocity variation in a cardiac cycle was fairly similar between the simulation and the ultrasonic measurements. Simulation based on real vessel geometry of individual patient provides information on pressure, velocity, and its distribution in the diseased arteries or arteries to be surgically treated. The results of simulation may help surgeons to better understand hemodynamic status and surgical need of the patient by revealing variation of the hemodynamic parameters. Futhermore, they may serve as basic data for surgical treatment of arteries. This research is expected to develop to a program in the future that early diagnose atherosclerosis by showing distribution of a hemodynamic index closely related to atherosclerosis in arteries.

• 재활복지
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.147-163
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to examine how horse-riding exercise would be effective on the stroke patients' muscle thickness of lower extremity. The 30 stroke patients who were hospitalized in a hospital located in G metropolitan city were selected for this study. These subjects were randomly placed in a horse-riding exercise group (n=15) and a control group (n=15). The horse-riding exercise group received three 20-minute exercises a week for a total of 6 weeks. An ultrasound imaging equipment was used to measured The thicknesses of the rectus femoris (RF), tibialis anterior (TA), medial gastrocnemius (MG), and gluteus medius (GM). After the completion of a 6-week exercise program, same measurement was conducted for all study subjects. The data were analyzed using a paired t-test and independent t-test to determine the statistical significance. As a result, muscle thickness was significantly differentiated before and after the intervention in each group. The thicknesses of all the four muscles significantly increased after exercise in the horse-riding exercise group. The thicknesses of the RF, GM, and TA significantly increased after exercise in the control group. In conclusion, horse-riding exercise increased the thickness of the lower extremity skeletal muscles by stabilizing the knees and activating the extensor muscles of the lower extremities.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.116-123
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• 2023

A high intensity focuses ultrasound (HIFU) is one of the emerging technologies in the biomedical field. The piezoelectric HIFU transducer is a device that utilizes the thermal energy generated by high ultrasound energy. Recently an operating frequency of the HIFU transducer is to expand above a 7 MHz. In this study, the acoustic pressures and temperature distributions in the tissue that generated by the HIFU transducer at 10 MHz were calculated with the finite element method. In addition, the pressure focusing characteristics of the device were analyzed. The geometrical variables are the piezomaterial thickness, lens shape, water height, and film thickness. The results shown that the acoustic pressure increased and saturated gradually when the height/radius (H_L/R_L) ratio of the lens increased. Moreover, the focal area was gradually decreases with H_L/R_L ratio of the lens. In case of the optimized HIFU transducer, the maximum pressure and temperature were analyzed about 19 MPa and 65℃ respectively. And the -3 dB focused distances in the axial and lateral direction are around 2.3 mm and 0.23 mm respectively.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.9
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• pp.866-877
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• 2022

Objective: The optimal imaging approach for evaluating pathological nipple discharge remains unclear. We investigated the value of adding ductography to ultrasound (US) for evaluating pathologic nipple discharge in patients with negative mammography findings. Materials and Methods: From July 2003 to December 2018, 101 women (mean age, 46.3 ± 12.2 years; range, 23-75 years) with pathologic nipple discharge were evaluated using pre-ductography (initial) US, ductography, and post-ductography US. The imaging findings were reviewed retrospectively. The standard reference was surgery (70 patients) or > 2 years of follow-up with US (31 patients). The diagnostic performances of initial US, ductography, and post-ductography US for detecting malignancy were compared using the McNemar's test or a generalized estimating equation. Results: In total, 47 papillomas, 30 other benign lesions, seven high-risk lesions, and 17 malignant lesions were identified as underlying causes of pathologic nipple discharge. Only eight of the 17 malignancies were detected on the initial US, while the remaining nine malignancies were detected by ductography. Among the nine malignancies detected by ductography, eight were detected on post-ductography US and could be localized for US-guided intervention. The sensitivities of ductography (94.1% [16/17]) and post-ductography US (94.1% [16/17]) were significantly higher than those of initial US (47.1% [8/17]; p = 0.027 and 0.013, respectively). The negative predictive value of post-ductography US (96.9% [31/32]) was significantly higher than that of the initial US (83.3% [45/54]; p = 0.006). Specificity was significantly higher for initial US than for ductography and post-ductography US (p = 0.001 for all). Conclusion: The combined use of ductography and US has a high sensitivity for detecting malignancy in patients with pathologic nipple discharge and negative mammography. Ductography findings enable lesion localization on second-look post-ductography US, thus facilitating the selection of optimal treatment plans.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.353-359
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• 2017

The sonophoresis, a representative low-intensity ultrasonic therapy, is a technique for delivering the drugs into the epidermis, dermis and skin appendages by using physical vibration and heat effects of the ultrasonic waves. Sonophoresis could increases the delivering and absorption efficiency of the drugs usually consisting of hydrophilic molecules and macromolecules. In addition, it has the advantage of being effective in delivering drugs with relatively large molecular sizes such as insulin or lipid. In this study, we proposed a multi-structure ultrasonic transducer assembly with a large-size single piezoelectric element and a drug delivery function at the treatment site for efficient sonophoresis treatment. Futhermore, a transducer assembly structure capable of raising and maintaining the temperature of the treatment site was proposed and evaluated for effectiveness. The transducer assembly proposed in this study is expected to improve the efficiency of sonophoresis by providing a constant amount of drug, and assisting drug delivery through heating the treatment site.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.253-260
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• 1989

The time domain methods of estimating the attenuation coefficient are generally based on the analysis of statisical properties of the reflected echoes form an attenuating medium. Hence, it is often required to have a large number of data samples in order to obtain a statistically stable estimation result. In the attenuation estimation problem, this means that many different speckle patterns are required in the spatial resolution volume of an attenLlation image. In this paper, by using the fact that the speckle pattern Is sensitive to the point spread function of the ultrasound beam, we suggest a method to generate the statiscally uncorrelated or slightly correlated data samples in a given region by rotating a linear transducer and carrying out lateral scans for all rotating angles. This technique is applied to the entropy method for attenuation estimation proposed recently by the authors where the performance is verified by experiments using a tissue equivalent phantom.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.218-224
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• 2019

Objective: This reliability study examined the effects of applying varying induced inward pressures using a transducer placed at 0° neutral ankle position (NEU) and 15° ankle dorsiflexion (DF) on tibialis anterior (TA) muscle thickness using a custom-made device with a force indicator during rehabilitative ultrasound imaging. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Twenty-four healthy subjects were recruited in this study. Two examiners measured the muscle thickness of the TA at 0° NEU and 15° DF in 3 conditions of inward pressures (1.0 N, 2.0 N, and 4.0 N) using a custom-made holder. The muscle thickness was measured three times for each of the conditions arranged in random order. For intra- and inter-rater reliability, the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) with 95% confidence intervals, standard error of measurement, minimal detectable change, and coefficient of variation were analyzed. One-way repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted for investigating changes of TA muscle thickness according to the inward pressures of the transducers. Results: The intra-rater reliability of TA muscle thickness measurement was excellent (ICC_3,1: 0.92-0.96) for all conditions (at both ankle joint angles per varying inward pressure). Likewise, the inter-rater reliability of TA muscle thickness measurement was excellent (ICC_2,1: 0.89-0.97) under same conditions. The mean of TA thickness showed the trend of decreasing significantly with increased inward pressures at all ankle joint angles (p<0.05). Conclusions: Use of this custom-made device with a force indicator is useful to accomplish the high intra- and inter-rater reliability of TA muscle thickness measurement at both ankle joint angles in reducing the measurement error.