• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
• /
• 2004.11a
• /
• pp.100-103
• /
• 2004

Experiments and simulation were done to study the impact of contrast agent when CT scan was used to attenuation correction for PET images in PET/CT system. Whole body phantom was imaged with various concentration of iodine-based contrast agent using CT. Mathematical emission and transmission density map with liver were made to simulate for whole body FDG imaging. Various transmission density maps was generated with non-uniform enhancement of contrast agent, hypo-attenuating of contrast agent for tumor, different concentration of contrast agent, and so on. Attenuation correction was done with all transmission maps. In the experiments, we confirmed that attenuation coefficient was changed by concentration of contrast agent. From the simulation data, image quality of attenuation corrected images was affected by contrast agent and artifact was produced by contrast agent. These results indicated that the contrast agent should be used with a full understanding of its potential problem in PET/CT system.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.67-70
• /
• 2013

Purpose: Surge in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, hepatic artery chemical embolization is one of the effective interventional procedures. The PET/CT examination plays an important role in determining the presence of residual cancer cells and metastasis, and prognosis after embolization. The other hand, the hepatic artery chemical embolization of embolic material used lipiodol produced artifacts in the PET/CT examination, and these artifacts results in quantitative evaluation influence. This study, the radioactivity density and the percentage error was evaluated by the extent of the impact of lipiodol in the image of PET/CT. Materials and Methods: 1994 NEMA Phantom was acquired for 2 minutes and 30 seconds per bed after the Teflon, water and lipiodol filled, and these three inserts into the enough to mix the rest behind radioactive injection with $20{\pm}10MBq$. Phantom reconfigure with the iterative reconstruction method the number of iterations for two times by law, a subset of 20 errors. We set up region of interest at each area of the Teflon, water, lipiodol, insert artifact occurs between regions, and background and it was calculated and compared by the radioactivity density(kBq/ml) and the% Difference. Results: Radioactivity density of the each region of interest area with the teflon, water, lipiodol, insert artifact occurs between regions, background activity was $0.09{\pm}0.04$, $0.40{\pm}0.17$, $1.55{\pm}0.75$, $2.5{\pm}1.09$, $2.65{\pm}1.16 kBq/ml$ (P <0.05) and it was statistically significant results. Percentage error of lipiodol in each area was 118%, compared to the water compared with the background activity 52%, compared with a teflon was 180% of the difference. Conclusion: We found that the error due to under the influence of the attenuation correction when PET/CT scans after lipiodol injection performed, and the radioactivity density is higher than compared to other implants, lower than background. Applying the nonattenuation correction images, and after hepatic artery chemical embolization who underwent PET/CT imaging so that the test should be take the consideration to the extent of the impact of lipiodol be.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
• /
• v.19 no.1
• /
• pp.51-56
• /
• 2015

Purpose As medical radiation exposures on patients are being social issues an interest in a relief of radiation exposures on patients is increasing. Further, there are many cases where some patients among who are getting PET/CT tests choose to get implanted with metal artifacts in their bodies. This study is to find out effects of presence or absence of metal artifacts when dose change or CT attenuation correction for the relief of radiation exposures are applied using phantoms through changes in standard uptake value (SUV). Materials and Methods GE company's Discovery 710 machine was used for PET/CT test equipments. We used NEMA IEC body phantoms. We also used screw and mesh cage made of titanium which are used in real clinical processes for the metal artifacts. Two experiments were conducted: One is to test and measure repeatedly about SUV about differences in CT attenuation corrections according to dose changes and another is to do the same procedure for SUV about the presence and absence of the metal artifacts. We injected $^{18}F-FDG$ into NEMA IEC body phantoms with a TBR ratio of 4:1 and then put the metal material into the transformation phantoms. Once a scanning for the metal artifacts was done we eliminated the metal artifacts and went on non-metal artifacts. For the each two experiments, we scanned repeatedly with CT kVp (140, 120, 100, 80) and mA (120, 80, 40, 20, 10) for an experimental condition. For PET, we reconstructed each with standard AC (STD) technique and quantitation achieved cnsistently QAC) technique among CT attenuation correction methods. We conducted a comparative analysis on measured average values and variations which were measured through repeated measure of SUV of region 1, 2, 3 spheres for each conditions of non-metal /metal scan. Results For each kVp, 120, 80, 40 (mA) of non/metal (screw, mesh cage) showed low frequency of fluctuation rates of above 2%. In 20, 10 mA above 2% of fluctuation rates appeared in high frequency. Also, when we compared the fluctuation rates of STD and QAC techniques in non/metal (screw, mesh cage) tests QAC technique showed about 1-10% of differences for each conditions compared to STD technique. In addition, metal types did not have significant effects on fluctuation rates. Conclusion We confirmed that SUV fluctuation rates for both STD and QAC techniques increase as dosage is lower. We also found that the SUV of PET data was maintained steadily in a low dosage for QAC technique when compared with STD technique. Hence, when the low dosage is used for the relief of radiation exposures on patients QAC technique may be exploited helpfully and this could be applied in the same way for patients with metal artifacts implanted in their bodies.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
• /
• v.54 no.7
• /
• pp.110-114
• /
• 2017

Because the arm can't be sutured due to fracture during a elbow CT scan, a CT scan is proceeded in a state of abdomen and L-spire are overlapped which beam hardening artifact is done many times, and it often lowers the quality of elbow CT images. So there are many difficulties in reading and due to increase in radiation dose from it, the number of patient's exposure keeps increasing. In this research, it plans to improve the quality of the images by avoiding overlap with abdomen, and increasing the number of photon overlapped with lung field which the line attenuation is relatively small. The way of experiment is based on patient's right elbow and place him as head first position, then place his elbow at L2-3 level in supine position, turn about 30 degrees to the left in non-control breathing and in supine position, and compared with full inspiration after overlapping with lung. After figuring out the average value and standard deviation data using Image J program 5 times each for 16, 128 channels, the evaluation is proceeded by measuring each of CNR, MSR are statistically analyzed using SPSS program. Therefore, through positioning and inspiration during elbow CT scan, the way of inspection minimized the exposure radiation dose, and seems to be meaningful in a way to improve the quality of the images.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.49-61
• /
• 2014

Purpose: With the aging of the population, the attack rate of osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture is in the increasing trend, and percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) is the most commonly performed standardized treatment. Although there is a research report of the excellence of usefulness of the SPECT/CT examination in terns of the exact diagnosis before and after the procedure, the bone cement material used in the procedure influences the image quality by forming an artifact in the CT image. Therefore, the objective of the research lies on evaluating the effect the bone cement gives to a SPECT/CT image. Materials and Methods: The images were acquired by inserting a model cement to each cylinder, after setting the background (3.6 kBq/mL), hot cylinder (29.6 kBq/mL) and cold cylinder (water) to the NEMA-1994 phantom. It was reconstructed with Astonish (Iterative: 4 Subset: 16), and non attenuation correction (NAC), attenuation correction (AC+SC-) and attenuation and scatter correction (AC+SC+) were used for the CT correction method. The mean count by each correction method and the count change ratio by the existence of the cement material were compared and the contrast recovery coefficient (CRC) was obtained. Additionally, the bone/soft tissue ratio (B/S ratio) was obtained after measuring the mean count of the 4 places including the soft tissue(spine erector muscle) after dividing the vertebral body into fracture region, normal region and cement by selecting the 20 patients those have performed PVP from the 107 patients diagnosed of compression fracture. Results: The mean count by the existence of a cement material showed the rate of increase of 12.4%, 6.5%, 1.5% at the hot cylinder of the phantom by NAC, AC+SC- and AC+SC+ when cement existed, 75.2%, 85.4%, 102.9% at the cold cylinder, 13.6%, 18.2%, 9.1% at the background, 33.1%, 41.4%, 63.5% at the fracture region of the clinical image, 53.1%, 61.6%, 67.7% at the normal region and 10.0%, 4.7%, 3.6% at the soft tissue. Meanwhile, a relative count reduction could be verified at the cement adjacent part at the inside of the cylinder, and the phantom image on the lesion and the count increase ratio of the clinical image showed a contrary phase. CRC implying the contrast ratio and B/S ratio was improved in the order of NAC, AC+SC-, AC+SC+, and was constant without a big change in the cold cylinder of the phantom. AC+SC- for the quantitative count, and AC+SC+ for the contrast ratio was analyzed to be the highest. Conclusion: It is considered to be useful in a clinical diagnosis if the application of AC+SC+ that improves the contrast ratio is combined, as it increases the noise count of the soft tissue and the scatter region as well along with the effect of the bone cement in contrast to the fact that the use of AC+SC- in the spine SPECT/CT examination of a PVP performed patient drastically increases the image count and enables a high density of image of the lesion(fracture).

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Research
• /
• v.47 no.2
• /
• pp.247-254
• /
• 2007

This study was performed to identify the normal anatomic orientation of pulmonary arteries and to obtain the normal baseline parameters and the optimal contrast material delivery methods of computed tomographic pulmonary angiography (CTPA) on normal beagle dogs. Based on the contrast injection flow rate, the contrast volume, and the administration methods, the experimental groups were divided into 4 groups such as group 1 : 2 ml/s, 3 ml/kg, and monophasic administration; group 2 : 5 ml/s, 3 ml/kg, and monophasic administration; group 3 : 5 ml/s, 4 ml/kg, and monophasic administration; group 4 : 5 ml/s and 2 ml/kg in first phase, 0.3 ml/s and 2 ml/kg in second phase, as biphasic administration. Normal anatomic orientation of pulmonary arteries in CTPA was evaluated through reformatted and 3D images after retro-reconstruction. Normal parameters for great arteries and peripheral pulmonary arteries were obtained on the factor of basement hounsfield unit (HU) values, contrast enhanced HU values, delay time, and peak time. And the optimal contrast delivery methods were evaluated on the factor of contrast enhanced HU values, image quality, and artifact. The monophasic administration with 5 ml/s contrast injection flow rate and 3 ml/kg contrast volume was optimal in canine CTPA.

• Conservation Science in Museum
• /
• v.22
• /
• pp.15-26
• /
• 2019

This study was focused on the three-dimensional convergence modeling that can multilaterally analyze internal and external shapes of the Sam-Chongtong Hand Canon by optical precision scanning optimized for acquiring the surface shape and X-ray CT scanning used for obtaining the internal shape. First, the scanning results were converted by compatible extension, after which three-dimensional deviation analysis was conducted to verify mutual conformities. Accordingly, most (56.98%) deviations between the two scanning models was found be ±0.1mm. This result did not influence registration and merging based on the ICP algorithm. The merged data exhibited the external surface color, detailed shapes, internal width, and structure of the hand canon. The three-dimensional model based on optical surface scanning and X-ray CT scanning can be used for traditional technique interpretation as well as digital documentation of cultural heritage. In the future, it will contribute to deliver accessible scientific information of exhibits for visitors.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.25-31
• /
• 2019

Purpose: Metals induce metal artifact during CT-image for therapy planning, and it occurs images distortion, which affects the volumetric measurement and radiation calculation. In the case of using megavoltage computed tomography(MVCT), the volume of metals can be measured as similar to true volume due to minimal metal artifact outcome. In this study, radiation assessment was conducted by comparing teeth volume from images of kVCT and MVCT of head and neck cancer patients, then assigning to kVCT image to calculate radiation after obtaining the similar volume of true teeth volume from MVCT. Also, formal IR image was able to verify the accuracy of radiation calculation. Material and method: 5 head and neck cancer patients who had intensity-modulated radiation therapy from Radixact^® Series were of the subject in this study. Calculations of radiation when constraining true teeth volume out of kVCT image(A-CT) and when designated specific HU after teeth assigned using MVCT image were compared with formal IR image. Treatment planning was devised at the same constraints and mean dose was measured at the radiation assess points. The points were anterior of the teeth, between PTV and the teeth, the interior of PTV near the teeth, and the teeth where 5cm distance from PTV. Result: A difference of metals volume from kVCT and MVCT image was mean 3.49±2.61cc, maximum 7.43cc. PTV was limited to where the internal teeth were fully contained. The results of PTV dose evaluation showed that the average CI value of the kVCT treatment planning without the artifact correction was 0.86, and the average CI value of the kVCT with the artifact correction using MVCT image was 0.9. Conclusion: When the Treatment Planning was made without correction of metal artifacts, the dose of PTV was underestimated, indicating that dose uncertainty occurred. When the computerized treatment plan was made without correction of metal artifacts, the dose of PTV was underestimated, indicating that dose uncertainty occurred.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.83 no.6
• /
• pp.1286-1297
• /
• 2022

Purpose To assess the usefulness of various metal artifact reduction (MAR) methods in patients with hip prostheses. Materials and Methods This retrospective study included 47 consecutive patients who underwent hip arthroplasty and dual-energy CT. Conventional polyenergetic image (CI), orthopedic-MAR (OMAR), and virtual monoenergetic image (VMI, 50-200 keV) were tested for MAR. Quantitative analysis was performed in seven regions around the prostheses. Qualitative assessments included evaluation of the degree of artifacts and the presence of secondary artifacts. Results The lowest amount of image noise was observed in the O-MAR, followed by the VMI. O-MAR also showed the lowest artifact index, followed by high-keV VMI in the range of 120-200 keV (soft tissue) or 200 keV (bone). O-MAR had the highest contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) in regions with severe hypodense artifacts, while VMI had the highest CNR in other regions, including the periprosthetic bone. On assessment of the CI of pelvic soft tissues, VMI showed a higher structural similarity than O-MAR. Upon qualitative analysis, metal artifacts were significantly reduced in O-MAR, followed by that in VMI, while secondary artifacts were the most frequently found in the O-MAR (p < 0.001). Conclusion O-MAR is the best technique for severe MAR, but it can generate secondary artifacts. VMI at high keV can be advantageous for evaluating periprosthetic bone.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.7-10
• /
• 2013

Purpose : This study evaluated the effects of breathing protocols on matching results of PET and CT images using two breathing protocols such as free breathing and acquisition in holding the breathing after the normal expiration in acquiring CT images. Materials and Methods: Whole body FDG PET and CT images of 200 patients (mean age: 58 (range 20~84), 103 males and 97 females) using Discovery VCT (GE Healthcare, Milwaukee, USA). When taking CT images, subjects were asked to breathe freely (free breathing, n=100) or hold the breathing after the normal expiration (Hold, n=100). In the whole body image coronal section where PET and CT were matched, the matched error of the boundary between diaphragm and liver was measured in length. The matched errors were compared according to breathing protocol by age, sex and disease. The verification of statistical significance was made by SPSS 15.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) via one way ANOVA. Results: The matched error in all was 0.87 mm. According to breathing protocol, there was no significant difference in matched error as1.01 mm in free breathing and as 0.73 mm in hold breathing (p=.688). The matched error according to sex did not show significant difference as 1.08 mm of males, and 0.93 mm of females in free breathing (p=.517). In hold breathing, there was no significant difference as 0.79 mm of males and 0.66 mm of females (p=.738). There was no significant difference in matched error by age between free breathing and hold breathing (free breathing (p=.728), hold (p=.465). There was no significant difference in matched error by disease between free breathing and hold breathing (free breathing (p=.197), hold (p=.518) Conclusion: The difference in matched error between free breathing and hold breathing was less than 5 mm at 99%. There was no statistically significant difference in matched error by breathing protocol, age and disease. It was proved that there was no difference in matched error between PET and CT images according to breathing protocol during PET/CT scan.