• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.13 no.5
• /
• pp.2393-2398
• /
• 2012

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the geometric accuracy of thoracic anatomic landmarks as target surrogates of intrapulmonary tumors for manual rigid registration during image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT). Methods: Kilovolt cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images acquired during IGRT for 29 lung cancer patients with 33 tumors, including 16 central and 17 peripheral lesions, were analyzed. We selected the "vertebrae", "carina", and "large bronchi" as the candidate surrogates for central targets, and the "vertebrae", "carina", and "ribs" as the candidate surrogates for peripheral lesions. Three to six pairs of small identifiable markers were noted in the tumors for the planning CT and Day 1 CBCT. The accuracy of the candidate surrogates was evaluated by comparing the distances of the corresponding markers after manual rigid matching based on the "tumor" and a particular surrogate. Differences between the surrogates were assessed using 1-way analysis of variance and post hoc least-significant-difference tests. Results: For central targets, the residual errors increased in the following ascending order: "tumor", "bronchi", "carina", and "vertebrae"; there was a significant difference between "tumor" and "vertebrae" (p = 0.010). For peripheral diseases, the residual errors increased in the following ascending order: "tumor", "rib", "vertebrae", and "carina"; There was a significant difference between "tumor" and "carina" (p = 0.005). Conclusions: The "bronchi" and "carina" are the optimal surrogates for central lung targets, while "rib" and "vertebrae" are the optimal surrogates for peripheral lung targets for manual matching of online and planned tumors.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.281-290
• /
• 2021

Objective: To assess the performance of content-based image retrieval (CBIR) of chest CT for diffuse interstitial lung disease (DILD). Materials and Methods: The database was comprised by 246 pairs of chest CTs (initial and follow-up CTs within two years) from 246 patients with usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP, n = 100), nonspecific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP, n = 101), and cryptogenic organic pneumonia (COP, n = 45). Sixty cases (30-UIP, 20-NSIP, and 10-COP) were selected as the queries. The CBIR retrieved five similar CTs as a query from the database by comparing six image patterns (honeycombing, reticular opacity, emphysema, ground-glass opacity, consolidation and normal lung) of DILD, which were automatically quantified and classified by a convolutional neural network. We assessed the rates of retrieving the same pairs of query CTs, and the number of CTs with the same disease class as query CTs in top 1-5 retrievals. Chest radiologists evaluated the similarity between retrieved CTs and queries using a 5-scale grading system (5-almost identical; 4-same disease; 3-likelihood of same disease is half; 2-likely different; and 1-different disease). Results: The rate of retrieving the same pairs of query CTs in top 1 retrieval was 61.7% (37/60) and in top 1-5 retrievals was 81.7% (49/60). The CBIR retrieved the same pairs of query CTs more in UIP compared to NSIP and COP (p = 0.008 and 0.002). On average, it retrieved 4.17 of five similar CTs from the same disease class. Radiologists rated 71.3% to 73.0% of the retrieved CTs with a similarity score of 4 or 5. Conclusion: The proposed CBIR system showed good performance for retrieving chest CTs showing similar patterns for DILD.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.103-109
• /
• 2013

Background: The objective of this study is to determine knowledge about lung cancer among secondary school male teachers in Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among three secondary schools located in Kudat district, Sabah, Malaysia during the period from June until September 2012. The protocol of this study was approved by ethics committee of Management and Science University, Malaysia. The aims were explained and a consent form was signed by each participant. Respondents were chosen randomly from each school with the help of the headmasters. Self-administrated questionnaires, covering socio-demographic characteristics and general knowledge of lung cancer, were distributed. Once all 150 respondents completed the questionnaire, they passed it to their head master for collecting and recording. All the data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 13. ANOVA and t-test were applied for univariate analysis; and multiple linear regression for multivariate analysis. Results: A total of 150 male secondary school teachers participated in this study. Their mean age was $35.6{\pm}6.5$ (SD); maximum 50 and minimum 23 years old. More than half of the participants were Malay and married (52%, 79%; respectively). Regarding the knowledge about lung cancer, 57.3% of the participants mentioned that only males are affected by lung cancer. Some 70.7% mentioned that lung cancer can be transmitted from one person to another. More than half (56.7%) reported that lung cancer is not the leading cause of death in Malaysian males. As for risk factors, the majority reported that family history of lung cancer is not involved. However, 91.3% were aware that cigarettes are the main risk factor of lung cancer and more than half (52%) believed that second-hand smoking is one of the risk factor of lung cancer. More than half (51.3%) were not aware that asbestos, ionizing radiation and other cancer causing substances are risk factors for lung cancer. Quitting smoking, avoiding second-hand smoking and avoiding unnecessary x-ray image of the chest (53.3%, 96.0%, 87.3%; respectively) are the main preventive measures mentioned by the participants. For the factors that influence the participants knowledge, univariate and multivariate analysis showed that only race was significant. Conclusions: Overall, the knowledge of school male teachers about lung cancer was low. However, few items were scored high: cigarettes are the main risk factor; avoiding second-hand smoking; and avoiding x-rays. Interventions to increase lung cancer awareness are needed to improve early detection behavior. Increase the price of pack of cigarettes to RM 20 and banning smoking in public places such as restaurants are highly recommended as primary preventive measures.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
• /
• v.73 no.3
• /
• pp.182-186
• /
• 2012

Cryptococcosis is an invasive fungal infection, which is more common in immunocompromised patients. However, pulmonary cryptococcosis can occur in immunocompetent patients and should be considered on a differential diagnosis for nodular or mass-like lesions in chest radiograph. Recently, we experienced a patient with pulmonary cryptococcosis, successfully treated with oral fluconazole therapy. A 74-year-old female patient was referred for an evaluation of abnormal images, a large consolidative mass with multiple nodular consolidations and small nodules that mimics primary lung cancer with multiple lung to lung metastases. Computed tomography-guided lung biopsy confirmed the diagnosis of pulmonary cryptococcosis. The follow-up image taken after 4 months with oral fluconazole treatment showed marked improvement.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.17 no.sup1
• /
• pp.79-84
• /
• 2016

Graphic health warnings (GHW) on tobacco packages have proven to be effective in increasing quit attempts among smokers and reducing initial smoking among adolescents. This research aimed to examine the relative importance of different attributes of graphic health warnings on tobacco packages in Viet Nam. A discrete choice experimental (DCE) design was applied with a conditional logit model. In addition, a ranking method was used to list from the least to the most dreadful GHW labels. With the results from DCE model, graphic type was shown to be the most important attribute, followed by cost and coverage area of GHW. The least important attribute was position of the GHW. Among 5 graphic types (internal lung cancer image, external damaged teeth, abstract image, human suffering image and text), the image of lung cancer was found to have the strongest influence on both smokers and non-smokers. With ranking method, the image of throat cancer and heart diseases were considered the most dreadful images. GHWs should be designed with these attributes in mind, to maximise influence on purchase among both smokers and non-smokers.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.25-32
• /
• 1992

A new restoration method of chest X -ray image (dual project filter) was proposed to improve SNR(signal to noise ratio) characteristics. In this method, a priori Information of system and anatomical structure and statistics of projected object are used in the design of filter. Dual projection filter varies its parameters, adapting to the local regions of chest(lung region, mediasternum, subdiaphragm) and the structure of chest (bone, tissue, blood vessel, bronchia). The performance of Dual Projection Filter was 0.1-0.2dB better than Dual Sensor Wiener Filter, which was used for initial estimate of Dual Porjection Filter.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.154-162
• /
• 1999

In this paper, we acquired EBT section images of lung parenchyma using fabricated spirometric gating device and proposed new energy function based on dynamic contour model in order to extracted the contour of the lung parenchyma in EBT images. In EBT images, gray level of the lungs is lower than other region. we extracted the lungs contour using the new energy function considering gray level and contour vector of the lung parenchyma region from EBT images. As we compared the proposed method with the conventional method, we confirmed that detection method using proposed energy function was valid.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.347-370
• /
• 2019

In the computer-aided detection (CAD) system of pulmonary nodules, a high false positive rate is common because the density and the computed tomography (CT) values of the vessel and the nodule in the CT images are similar, which affects the detection accuracy of pulmonary nodules. In this paper, a method of automatic detection of pulmonary nodules based on multi-scale enhancement filters and 3D shape features is proposed. The method uses an iterative threshold and a region growing algorithm to segment lung parenchyma. Two types of multi-scale enhancement filters are constructed to enhance the images of nodules and blood vessels in 3D lung images, and most of the blood vessel images in the nodular images are removed to obtain a suspected nodule image. An 18 neighborhood region growing algorithm is then used to extract the lung nodules. A new pulmonary nodules feature descriptor is proposed, and the features of the suspected nodules are extracted. A support vector machine (SVM) classifier is used to classify the pulmonary nodules. The experimental results show that our method can effectively detect pulmonary nodules and reduce false positive rates, and the feature descriptor proposed in this paper is valid which can be used to distinguish between nodules and blood vessels.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.55 no.1
• /
• pp.77-80
• /
• 2022

Kartagener syndrome (KS) is a rare disease with an incidence of 1 in 20,000 to 30,000 births. There is no cure for KS, and conservative medical treatments are used to relieve symptoms and prevent disease progression. Lung transplantation (LT) is the only treatment option for end-stage KS. Since patients with KS have anatomical abnormalities such as situs inversus totalis, which often require surgery to correct, most reports are related to surgical techniques. Reports about morphological adaptations and changes in transplanted lung structure after LT in patients with KS are rare. We performed LT in a patient with KS and observed morphological adaptation of the lungs for 6 months on chest computed tomography using a quantitative evaluation tool (Chest Image Platform; Harvard University Disability Resources, Cambridge, MA, USA).

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
• /
• v.30 no.1_2
• /
• pp.83-95
• /
• 2018

Purpose : After planning the Respiratory Gated Radiotherapy for Lung cancer, the movement and volume change of sparing normal structures nearby target are not often considered during dose evaluation. This study carried out 4-D dose evaluation which reflects the movement of normal structures at certain phase of Respiratory Gated Radiotherapy, by using Deformable Image Registration that is well used for Adaptive Radiotherapy. Moreover, the study discussed the need of analysis and established some recommendations, regarding the normal structures's movement and volume change due to Patient's breathing pattern during evaluation of treatment plans. Materials and methods : The subjects were taken from 10 lung cancer patients who received Respiratory Gated Radiotherapy. Using Eclipse(Ver 13.6 Varian, USA), the structures seen in the top phase of CT image was equally set via Propagation or Segmentation Wizard menu, and the structure's movement and volume were analyzed by Center-to Center method. Also, image from each phase and the dose distribution were deformed into top phase CT image, for 4-dimensional dose evaluation, via VELOCITY Program. Also, Using $QUASAR^{TM}$ Phantom(Modus Medical Devices) and $GAFCHROMIC^{TM}$ EBT3 Film(Ashland, USA), verification carried out 4-D dose distribution for 4-D gamma pass rate. Result : The movement of the Inspiration and expiration phase was the most significant in axial direction of right lung, as $0.989{\pm}0.34cm$, and was the least significant in lateral direction of spinal cord, as -0.001 cm. The volume of right lung showed the greatest rate of change as 33.5 %. The maximal and minimal difference in PTV Conformity Index and Homogeneity Index between 3-dimensional dose evaluation and 4-dimensional dose evaluation, was 0.076, 0.021 and 0.011, 0.0 respectfully. The difference of 0.0045~2.76 % was determined in normal structures, using 4-D dose evaluation. 4-D gamma pass rate of every patients passed reference of 95 % gamma pass rate. Conclusion : PTV Conformity Index was more significant in all patients using 4-D dose evaluation, but no significant difference was observed between two dose evaluations for Homogeneity Index. 4-D dose distribution was shown more homogeneous dose compared to 3D dose distribution, by considering the movement from breathing which helps to fill out the PTV margin area. There was difference of 0.004~2.76 % in 4D evaluation of normal structure, and there was significant difference between two evaluation methods in all normal structures, except spinal cord. This study shows that normal structures could be underestimated by 3-D dose evaluation. Therefore, 4-D dose evaluation with Deformable Image Registration will be considered when the dose change is expected in normal structures due to patient's breathing pattern. 4-D dose evaluation with Deformable Image Registration is considered to be a more realistic dose evaluation method by reflecting the movement of normal structures from patient's breathing pattern.