• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.22-30
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• 1994

Encephalo-duro-arterio-synangiosis (EDAS) is a relatively new surgical procedure for treatment of childhood moyamoya disease. We assessed regional cerebral perfusion in moyamoya patients before (1.3 mo) and after (6.8 mo) EDAS with $^{99m}Tc$-HMPAO brain SPECT. A total of 21 EDAS operations in 17 moyamoya patients was included. Preoperative CT or MRI showed cerebral infarction in 14 patients and carotid angiography showed Suzuki grade I to V stenosis in 6%, 9%, 62%, 12% and 12% of the hemispheres respectively. Preoperative SPECT showed regional hypoperfusion in all patients, bilateral frontal and temporal lobes being the most frequently involved site. $4{\times}4$ pixel sized ROIs were applied on the frontotemporal cortex in 3 slice averaged transverse tomographic images. An index of regional perfusion was measured as: PI (%)=average F-T activity/average cerebellar activity${\times}100$ Pre-EDAS ipsilateral PI ranged from 23.7 to 98.4% (mean: $74.3{\pm}17%$) and increased significantly after operation ($81.4{\pm}17%$, p<0.001). Individual post-EDAS PI improved in 15/21 cases, showed no significant change in 5 and was slightly aggravated in 1. The amount of clinical improvement (${\Delta}CI$) was graded with a scale of 0 to 4 based on frequency and severity of TIA attacks. When patients were grouped according to pre-EDAS PI, group II (PI 70-89) showed a significantly higher ${\Delta}CI$ (3.3) compared to group I (PI< 70, 1.57) or group III (PI >90, 0.5) (P< 0.001). The amount of perfusion improvement (${\Delta}PI$) showed significant correlation with ${\Delta}CI$ (r=0.42, p=0.04). ${\Delta}PI$ did not, however, correlate with the amount of neovascularization assessed angiographically in 8 patients. Serial HMPAO SPECT is an useful noninvasive study for assessing perfusion improvement after EDAS in childhood moyamoya patients.

• 대한핵의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.316.1-316.1
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• 2005

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.540-542
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• 2004

Although artifacts in tomographic imaging can arise from a number of sources, this case presents an artifact caused by using inadequate acquisition parameters which do not match the collimator with which a camera equipped in Tc-99m ECD brain SPECT. Whenever the collimator in tomographic studies is changed, we should take care to use suitable parameters of acquisition protocol according to the collimator with which a camera is fitted. Other ways to prevent an error of this type is to use a point source.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.33-39
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• 1992

Spontaneous pain and painful overreaction to external stimuli resulting from lesion confined central nervous system (CNS) were named as thalamic syndrome. Thalamic lesion and decreased regional cortical perfusion thought to the pathogenesis of thalamic syndrome due to decreased function of thalamocortical tract. We performed $^{99m}Tc-HMPAO$ regional cerebral perfusion in 10 patients with clinical diagnosis of thalamic syndrome due to thalamic lesion or near the thalamic lesion at Yonsei University Hospital, from January 1989 to August 1991. In contrast to five patients with lesions near the thalamus who did not show secondarily decreased perfusion at cerebral cortex, four among the five patients with thalamic lesions revealed decreased cortical perfusion in the ipsilateral cerebral cortex on brain SPECT. These phenomena may suggest the loss of afferent activating stimuli from the thalamus led to decreased neuronal activity and the followitng hypoperfusion of cerebral cortex, and might be one of the indirect signs for suggesting presence of the thalamocortical tract. A causal relationship between cortical hypoperfusion and neuropsychological deficit is strongly suggested.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.232-243
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• 2002

Purpose: We studied whether brain perfusion SPECT is useful in the psychiatric disability evaluation of patients with chronic traumatic brain injury (TBI). Materials and Methods: Sixty-nine patients (M:F=58:11, age $39{\pm}14$ years) who underwent Tc-99m HMPAO brain SPECT, brain MRI and neuropsychological (NP) tests during hospitalization in psychiatric wards for the psychiatric disability evaluation were included; the severity of injury was mild in 31, moderate in 17 and severe in 21. SPECT, MRI, NP tests were peformed $6{\sim}61$ months (mean 23 months) post-injury. Diagnostic accuracy of SPECT and MRI to show hypoperfusion or abnormal signal intensity in patients with cognitive impairment represented by NP test results were compared. Results: Forty-two patients were considered to have cognitive impairment on NP tests and 27 not. Brain SPECT showed 71% sensitivity and 85% specificity, while brain MRI showed 62% sensitivity and 93% specificity (p>0.05, McNemar test). SPECT found more cortical lesions and MRI was superior in detecting white matter lesions. Sensitivity and specificity of 31 mild TBI patients were 45%, 90% for SPECT and 27%, 100% for MRI (p>0.05, McNemar test). Among 41 patients with normal brain MRI, SPECT showed 63% sensitivity (50% for mild TBI) and 88% specificity (85% for malingerers). Conclusion: Brain SPECT has a supplementary role to neuropsychological tests in the psychiatric disability evaluation of chronic TBI patients by detecting more cortical lesions than MRI.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2023

To have highly reliable diagnostic performance of it, this study comparatively analyzed spatial resolution of SPECT images and interrelationship depending on the changes of system uniformity of ga㎜a camera through phantom analysis. This study chose 6 kinds of results from quality control (uniformity) of triple head SPECT scanner operated in an university hospital in Seoul for six months. Then, study measured spatial resolutions (FWHM) of the images restructured by injecting radiopharmaceuticals to Jaszczak phantom, and doing SPECT scanning under the same conditions as clinical ones using the analytical program (image J). Quality controls performed by the experimental institution showed that differential uniformity of UFOV ranged from 2.76% to 7.61% (4.46±2.07), and integral uniformity of UFOV ranged from 1.98% to 5.42% (3.01±1.43). Meanwhile, Quantitative analysis evaluations of phantom images depending on the changes of uniformity of SPECT scanner detector showed that as the uniformity values of UFOV and CFOV decreased, FWHM values of phantom images decreased from 8.5 ㎜ to 5.8 ㎜. That is, it was quantitatively identified that the higher uniformity of detector is, the better spatial resolution of images gets (P<0.05). It is very important to perform continuous and consistent quality control of the nuclear medicinal system, and users should be clearly conscious of it.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.13-19
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• 2019

Purpose Tc-99m HMPAO is widely used radiopharmaceutical for brain perfusion SPECT. Tc-99m HMPAO is chemically unstable and is liable to show deterioration of labeling efficiency due to high incidence of secondary Tc-99m HMPAO complex, free pertechnetate and reduced-hydrolyzed Tc-99m. In this study, we investigated whether sialogogues administration could reduce the impurities of Tc-99m HMPAO. Materials and Methods In thirty subjects(20 male and 10 female, age range 19~89 years, mean age $60.7{\pm}14.5years$), brain perfusion SPECT were performed at basal and citric acid stimulation states consecutively after injection of 555 MBq of Tc-99m HMPAO. In the salivary glands, the uptake coefficient was calculated using Siemens processing program. Statistical comparison between before and after the citric acid stimulation performed paired t-test. P value less than 0.05 was regarded as statistically significant. Results Salivary glands uptake was $12900{\pm}3101$ counts in basal and $10677{\pm}2742$ counts in citric acid stimulation states. Unnecessary impurities in the body is much decreased after citric acid administration(t=10.78, P<0.05). The image quality was much improved after administration of citric acid and the regional cerebral perfusion was clearly from demarcated the background. Conclusion The impurity is distributed throughout the body particularly in the salivary glands and nasal mucosa when Tc-99m HMPAO brain perfusion SPECT is performed. If this impurities is not removed, the quality of the image may deteriorate, resulting in errors in visual evaluation. The use of sialogogues could be helpful for decreasing unnecessary impurities in the body.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.17-21
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• 1994

We studied 115 patients with seizure who had been performed brain SPECT, brain MRI or CT and EEG. To evaluate the pattern of brain SPECT in seizure patients 28 of them had secondary epilepsies, 87 had primary epilepsies. In primary epilepsies, 42 were generalized seizure and 45 were partial seizure. The causes of secondary epilepsies were congenital malformation, cerebromalacia, cerebral infarction, multiple sclerosis, AV-malformation, granuloma and etc, in order. In 28 secondary epilepsies, 25 of them, brain SPECT lesions was concordant with MRI or CT lesions, 3 were disconcordant. The brain SPECT findings of generalized seizure were normal in 22 patients, diffuse irregular decreased perfusion in 8, decreased in frontal cortex in 4, temporal in 5 and frontotemporal in 3. In 45 partial seizure, 19 brain SPECT were concordant with EEG (42.4%).

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.490-496
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• 1998

Purpose: We evaluated brain perfusion SPECT findings of MELAS syndrome and mitochondrial myopathy in correlation with MR imaging in search of specific imaging features. Materials and Methods: Subjects were five patients (four females and one male; age range, 1 to 25 year) who presented with repeated stroke-like episodes, seizures or developmental delay or asymptomatic but had elevated lactic acid in CSF and serum. Conventional non-contrast MR imaging and Tc-99m-ethyl cysteinate dimer (ECD) brain perfusion SPECT were Performed and imaging features were analyzed. Results: MRI demonstrated increased T2 signal intensities in the affected areas of gray and white matters mainly in the parietal (4/5) and occipital lobes (4/5) and in the basal ganglia (1/5), which were not restricted to a specific vascular territory. SPECT demonstrated decreased perfusion in the corresponding regions of MRI lesions. In addition, there were perfusion defects in parietal (1 patient), temporal (2), and frontal (1) lobes and basal ganglia (1) and thalami (2). In a patient with mitochondrial myopathy who had normal MRI, decreased perfusion was noted in left parietal area and bilateral thalami. Conclusion: Tc-99m ECD SPECT imaging in patients with MELAS syndrome and mitochondrial myopathy showed hypoperfusion of parieto-occipital cortex, basal ganglia, thalamus and temporal cortex, which were not restricted to a specific vascular territory. There were no specific imaging features on SPECT. The significance of abnormal perfusion on SPECT without corresponding MR abnormalities needs to be evaluated further in larger number of patients.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.302-308
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• 2013

Objective : MR perfusion and single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) are well known imaging studies to evaluate hemodynamic change between prior to and following superficial temporal artery (STA)-middle cerebral artery (MCA) anastomosis in moyamoya disease. But their side effects and invasiveness make discomfort to patients. We evaluated the ivy sign on MR fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) images in adult patients with moyamoya disease and compared it with result of SPECT and MR perfusion images. Methods : We enrolled twelve patients (thirteen cases) who were diagnosed with moyamoya disease and underwent STA-MCA anastomosis at our medical institution during a period ranging from September of 2010 to December of 2012. The presence of the ivy sign on MR FLAIR images was classified as Negative (0), Minimal (1), and Positive (2). Regions were classified into four territories: the anterior cerebral artery (ACA), the anterior MCA, the posterior MCA and the posterior cerebral artery. Results : Ivy signs on preoperative and postoperative MR FLAIR were improved (8 and 4 in the ACA regions, 13 and 4 in the anterior MCA regions and 19 and 9 in the posterior MCA regions). Like this result, the cerebrovascular reserve (CVR) on SPECT was significantly increased in the sum of CVR in same regions after STA-MCA anastomosis. Conclusion : After STA-MCA anastomosis, ivy signs were decreased in the cerebral hemisphere. As compared with conventional diagnostic modalities such as SPECT and MR perfusion images, the ivy sign on MR FLAIR is considered as a useful indicator in detecting brain hemodynamic changes between preoperatively and postoperatively in adult moyamoya patients.