• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.33-37
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• 2010

Purpose: In the early stage of using PET/CT, it was used to damper revision but recently shows that CT with MDCT is commonly used and works well for an anatomical diagnosis. This hospital makes the accuracy and convenience more higher in the diagnosis and evaluate of coronary heart disease through concurrently running myocardial perfusion SPECT examination, myocardial PET examination with FDG, and CT coronary artery CT angiography(coronary CTA) used PET/CT with 64-slice. This report shows protocol and image based on results from about 400 coronary heart disease examinations since having 64 channels PET/CT in July 2007. Materials and Methods: An Equipment for this examination is 64-slice CT and Discovery VCT (DVCT) that is consisted of PET with BGO ($Bi_4Ge_3O_{12}$) scintillation crystal by GE health care. First myocardial perfusion SPECT with pharmacologic stress test to reduce waiting time of a patient and get a quick diagnosis and evaluation, and right after it, myocardial FDG PET examination and coronary CTA run without a break. One-stop evaluation protocol of ischemic heart disease is as follows. 1)Myocardial perfusion SPECT with pharmacologic stress: A patient is injected with $^{99m}Tc$-MIBI 10 mCi and does not have any fatty food for myocardial PET examination and drink natural water with ursodeoxcholic acid 100 mg and we get SPECT image in an hour. 2)Myocardial FDG PET: To reduce blood fatty content and to increase uptake of FDG, we used creative oral glucose load using insulin and Acipimox to according to blood acid content. A patient is injected with $^{18}F$-FDG 5 mCi for reduction of his radiation exposure and we get a gated image an hour later and get delay image when we need. 3) Coronary CTA: The most important point is to control heart rate and to get cooperation of patient's breath. In order to reduce a heart rate of him or her below 65 beats, let him or her take beta blocker 50 mg ~ 200 mg after a consultation with a doctor about it and have breath-practices then have the examination. Right before the examination, we spray isosorbide dinitrate 3 to 5 times to lower tension of bessel wall and to extension a blood wall of a patient. It makes to get better the shape of an anatomy. At filming, a patient is injected CT contrast with high pressure and have enough practices before the examination in order to have no problem. For reduction of his radiation exposure, we have to do ECG-triggered X-ray tube modulation exposure. Results: We evaluate coronary artery stenosis through coronary CTA and study correlation (culprit vessel check) of a decline between stenosis and perfusion from the myocardial perfusion SPECT with pharmacologic stress, coronary CTA, and can check viability of infarction or hibernating myocardium by FDG PET. Conclusion: The examination makes us to set up a direction of remedy (drug treatment, PCI, CABG) because we can estimate of effect from remedy, lesion site and severity. In addition, we have an advantage that it takes just 3 hours and one-stop in that all of process of examinations run in succession and at the same time. Therefore it shows that the method is useful in one stop evaluation of ischemic heart disease.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.83 no.1
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• pp.54-69
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• 2022

Early detection of potential asymptomatic coronary artery disease is very important, as patients with sudden cardiac death often do not show symptoms such as chest pain or motor dyspnea. Coronary CT angiography (CCTA) has long been unjustified as a screening tool for asymptomatic patients because of the risks posed by radiation exposure. However, there are still various opinions regarding the usefulness of CCTA for screening for coronary artery disease (CAD) in asymptomatic healthy individuals or patients. This review investigated the usefulness of coronary artery calcium score and CCTA as screening tests for CAD in asymptomatic healthy individuals or patients through various literature reviews. With the development of CT technology, recent studies have been conducted in asymptomatic CAD patients with a reduced radiation dose of less than 1 mSv. A total of 2.6% of asymptomatic subjects on CCTA found significant CAD over 70%, and it was concluded that screening CCTA for CAD showed prognostic power in predicting the future occurrence of CAD in asymptomatic people. However, after the completion of the current NIH SCOT-HEART 2 study, it may be possible to determine whether CCTA is appropriate as a screening tool for CAD in asymptomatic healthy individuals.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.307-313
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is that in coronary artery angiography computed tomography (coronary CTA), to gain high quality of image and to use low dose radiation by administrating normal saline and converting the mode of scanning heart rate (HR) characteristics before infusing contrast media. All patients data (total specimens: 200, male: 108, female: 92) were measured by using appropriate mode of scanning the heart rate (HR) after injection of saline. in addition we measured radiation dose (CTDIvol, effective dose) in all examinations. CT number and noise, and blurring of coronary artery (proximal RCA, middle RCA, proximal LCA) were measured and compared. The result of this study after injection of saline, mean heart rate was decreased about $4.8{\pm}0.3bpm$ (beats per minute). 33 patients (13%) got converting scan mode due to reducing heart rate (HR). In prospective gating mode, radiation dose were measured less $6.0{\pm}1.0mSv$ (54.1%) than retrospective gating mode. Also showed a significant difference in heart rate decrease in image evaluation.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.61-64
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• 2012

The left aortic arch with an aberrant right subclavian artery, or arteria lusoria, is the most common aortic arch anomaly, occurring in 0.5-2.5% of individuals. In such cases, the angular course of the arteria lusoria to the ascending aorta imposes difficulty in passing a guide wire to the ascending aorta during right transradial catheterization. Here, the case of a 53-year-old woman with intermittent chest tightness and coughing is reported. Aberrant right subclavian artery (arteria lusoria) was diagnosed via aortogram during right transradial coronary angiography. Compression of the esophagus and trachea by the aberrant right subclavian artery was demonstrated by chest computed tomography (CT).

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.196-204
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• 2016

World Health Organization reported that heart-related diseases such as coronary artery stenoses show the highest occurrence rate which may cause heart attack. Using Computed Tomography angiography images will allow radiologists to detect and have intervention by creating 3D roadmapping of the vessels. However, it is often complex and difficult do reconstruct 3D vessel which causes very large amount of time and previous researches were studied to segment vessels more accurate automatically. Therefore, in this paper, Region Competition, Geodesic Active Contour (GAC), Multi-atlas based segmentation and Active Shape Model algorithms were applied to segment aortic root from CTA images and the results were analyzed by using mean Hausdorff distance, volume to volume measure, computational time, user-interaction and coronary ostium detection rate. As a result, Extracted 3D aortic model using GAC showed the highest accuracy but also showed highest user-interaction results. Therefore, it is important to improve automatic segmentation algorithm in future

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.413-416
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• 2022

A 32-year-old woman diagnosed with Turner syndrome presented to the hospital for an evaluation of cardiovascular complications. Preoperative computed tomography (CT) and echocardiography showed progression of aortic root and ascending aorta dilatation, as well as a bicuspid aortic valve. There was no evidence of aortic regurgitation. We planned valve-sparing aortic root replacement and ascending aorta replacement with a high risk of aortic rupture. Intraoperatively, we incidentally found a juxtacommissural origin of the right coronary artery (RCA). We performed aortic valve reimplantation using a graft designed with a key-shaped hole to wrap the juxtacommissural-origin RCA by modifying the Florida sleeve technique. Coronary blood flow was patent on postoperative CT angiography, and there was no evidence of aortic regurgitation on postoperative echocardiography. The patient was discharged from the hospital on postoperative day 7 without any complications.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.367-372
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• 2012

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of exposure factors such as kVp and mA applied by BMI on the image quality and patients absorbed dose of Coronary angiography in CT. Each data sets were into 4groups with different exposure values : Group A at 100kVp, 240mAs, Group B at 120kVp, 240mAs, Group C at 100kVp, 270mAs and Group D at 120kVp, 270mAs, and the mean of the scores of 4 groups was calculated for image quality as 4grades that is, 1(poor), 2(fair), 3(good) and 4(very good). Patient absorbed dose was calculated as DLP on the monitor. In case of absorbed dose, deviation in 2groups at 100kVp was 5.6 $mGy{\cdot}cm$, 11 $mGy{\cdot}cm$, was at 120kVp(DLP) with p<0.05. There was rather difference between groups with 100kVp or 120kVp respectively but the gaps were very little. No significant correlation was found between exposure factors and image quality in any images assessed(p>0.05), and the image quality was sufficient for diagnosis. As we applying coronary angiography, the selection of adequate exposure factors considering BMI identified might be effective for reduction of patient absorbed dose, improvement of image quality and diagnostic accuracy.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.967-977
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• 2020

Objective: To evaluate the effects of tube voltage on image quality in coronary CT angiography (CCTA), the estimated radiation dose, and DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) in peripheral blood lymphocytes to optimize the use of CCTA in the era of low radiation doses. Materials and Methods: This study included 240 patients who were divided into 2 groups according to the DNA DSB analysis methods, i.e., immunofluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. Each group was subdivided into 4 subgroups: those receiving CCTA only with different tube voltages of 120, 100, 80, or 70 kVp. Objective and subjective image quality was evaluated by analysis of variance. Radiation dosages were also recorded and compared. Results: There was no significant difference in demographic characteristics between the 2 groups and 4 subgroups in each group (all p > 0.05). As tube voltage decreased, both image quality and radiation dose decreased gradually and significantly. After CCTA, γ-H2AX foci and mean fluorescence intensity in the 120-, 100-, 80-, and 70-kVp groups increased by 0.14, 0.09, 0.07, and 0.06 foci per cell and 21.26, 9.13, 8.10, and 7.13 (all p < 0.05), respectively. The increase in the DNA DSB level in the 120-kVp group was higher than those in the other 3 groups (all p < 0.05), while there was no significant difference in the DSBs levels among these latter groups (all p > 0.05). Conclusion: The 100-kVp tube voltage may be optimal for CCTA when weighing DNA DSBs against the estimated radiation dose and image quality, with further reductions in tube voltage being unnecessary for CCTA.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.28-35
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• 2015

In this study, we investigated the effects of an iterative reconstruction algorithm and an automatic exposure control (AEC) technique on image quality and radiation dose through phantom experiments with coronary computed tomography (CT) angiography protocols. We scanned the AAPM CT performance phantom using 320 multi-detector-row CT. At the tube voltages of 80, 100, and 120 kVp, the scanning was repeated with two settings of the AEC technique, i.e., with the target standard deviations (SD) values of 33 (the higher tube current) and 44 (the lower tube current). The scanned projection data were reconstructed also in two ways, with the filtered back projection (FBP) and with the iterative reconstruction technique (AIDR-3D). The image quality was evaluated quantitatively with the noise standard deviation, modulation transfer function, and the contrast to noise ratio (CNR). More specifically, we analyzed the influences of selection of a tube voltage and a reconstruction algorithm on tube current modulation and consequently on radiation dose. Reduction of image noise by the iterative reconstruction algorithm compared with the FBP was revealed eminently, especially with the lower tube current protocols, i.e., it was decreased by 46% and 38%, when the AEC was established with the lower dose (the target SD=44) and the higher dose (the target SD=33), respectively. As a side effect of iterative reconstruction, the spatial resolution was decreased by a degree that could not mar the remarkable gains in terms of noise reduction. Consequently, if coronary CT angiogprahy is scanned and reconstructed using both the automatic exposure control and iterative reconstruction techniques, it is anticipated that, in comparison with a conventional acquisition method, image noise can be reduced significantly with slight decrease in spatial resolution, implying clinical advantages of radiation dose reduction, still being faithful to the ALARA principle.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.21 no.9
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• pp.1055-1064
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• 2020

Objective: To assess the incremental prognostic value of coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) in comparison to a clinical risk model (Framingham risk score, FRS) and coronary artery calcium score (CACS) for future cardiac events in ischemic stroke patients without chest pain. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study included 1418 patients with acute stroke who had no previous cardiac disease and underwent CCTA, including CACS. Stenosis degree and plaque types (high-risk, non-calcified, mixed, or calcified plaques) were assessed as CCTA variables. High-risk plaque was defined when at least two of the following characteristics were observed: low-density plaque, positive remodeling, spotty calcification, or napkin-ring sign. We compared the incremental prognostic value of CCTA for major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) over CACS and FRS. Results: The prevalence of any plaque and obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) (stenosis ≥ 50%) were 70.7% and 30.2%, respectively. During the median follow-up period of 48 months, 108 patients (7.6%) experienced MACE. Increasing FRS, CACS, and stenosis degree were positively associated with MACE (all p < 0.05). Patients with high-risk plaque type showed the highest incidence of MACE, followed by non-calcified, mixed, and calcified plaque, respectively (log-rank p < 0.001). Among the prediction models for MACE, adding stenosis degree to FRS showed better discrimination and risk reclassification compared to FRS or the FRS + CACS model (all p < 0.05). Furthermore, incorporating plaque type in the prediction model significantly improved reclassification (integrated discrimination improvement, 0.08; p = 0.023) and showed the highest discrimination index (C-statistics, 0.85). However, the addition of CACS on CCTA with FRS did not add to the prediction ability for MACE (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Assessment of stenosis degree and plaque type using CCTA provided additional prognostic value over CACS and FRS to risk stratify stroke patients without prior history of CAD better.