• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.202-206
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• 2010

Magnetic resonance image (MRI) is the most sensitive imaging test of the spine in routine clinical practice. Unlike conventional x-ray examinations and computed tomography scans, high-quality magnetic resonance images can be assured only if patients are able to remain perfectly still. However, some patients find it uncomfortable to remain still because of pain. In that condition, interlaminar cervical epidural injections can reduce pain and allow the procedure. When using air with the "loss of resistance" technique in epidural injections to identify the epidural space, there is the possibility of injected excessive air epidurally to mimic a herniated disc. We describe a case report of epidural air artifact in a cervical MRI after cervical epidural injections.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2019

Dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging plays an important role in non-invasive detection and characterization of primary and metastatic lesions in the liver. Recently, efforts have been made to improve spatial and temporal resolution of DCE liver MRI for arterial phase imaging. Review of recent publications related to arterial phase imaging of the liver indicates that there exist primarily two approaches: breath-hold and free-breathing. For breath-hold imaging, acquiring multiple arterial phase images in a breath-hold is the preferred approach over conventional single-phase imaging. For free-breathing imaging, a combination of three-dimensional (3D) stack-of-stars golden-angle sampling and compressed sensing parallel imaging reconstruction is one of emerging techniques. Self-gating can be used to decrease respiratory motion artifact. This article introduces recent MRI technologies relevant to hepatic arterial phase imaging, including differential subsampling with Cartesian ordering (DISCO), golden-angle radial sparse parallel (GRASP), and X-D GRASP. This article also describes techniques related to dynamic 3D image reconstruction of the liver from golden-angle stack-of-stars data.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.375-385
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• 2016

Recently, several implantable hearing aids such as cochlear implant, middle ear implant, etc., which have a module receiving power and signal from outside the body, are frequently used to treat the hearing impaired patients. Most of implantable hearing aids are adopted permanent magnet pairs to couple between internal and external devices for the enhancement of power transmission. Generally, the internal device which containing the magnet in the center of receiving coil is implanted under the skin of human temporal bone. In case of MRI scanning of a patient with the implantable hearing aid, however, homogeneous magnetic fields of the MRI might be interfered by the implanted magnet. For the above reasons, the MR image is degraded by large area of artifact, so that diagnostics are almost impossible in deteriorated region. In this paper, we proposed an external coil system that can reduce the artifact of MR image due to the internal coupling magnet. By finite element analysis estimating area of MR artifact according to varying current and shape of the external coil, optimal coil parameters were extracted. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed external coil system was verified by confirming the artifact at real MRI scan.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.191-196
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the reproducibility and usefulness of an image through the fusion of the computed tomography image and the magnetic resonance image by using a self-produced phantom when planning the treatment, and also to compare and analyze the target dose on the acquired image. The size of small hole and the reproducibility of capacity existed in the phantom on the image of the phantom obtained by the computed tomography and the magnetic resonance image of the phantom scanning with different intensity of magnetic field are compared, and the change of dose in the random target is compared and analyzed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2001.12a
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• pp.251-254
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• 2001

본 논문에서는 Self Organizing Map을 이용하여 fMRI data를 분석해 보았다. fMRl (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging)는 인간의 뇌에 대한 비 침투적 연구 방법 중 최근에 각광받고 있는 것이다. Motor task를 수행하고 있는 피험자로부터 image data를 얻어내어 SOM을 적용하여 clustering한 결과 motor cortex 영역이 뚜렷하게 clustering 되었음을 알 수 있었다.

• Proceedings of the Korea Multimedia Society Conference
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• 2003.05b
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• pp.389-392
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• 2003

MRI 영상은 뇌의 해부학적 정보와 기능적인 정보를 제공하는 유용한 도구이다. MR 뇌 영상은 2차원 영상뿐만 아니라 3차원 영상도 임상적으로 중요하다. MR 영상에서 뇌영역의 추출방법으로는 형태학적인 방법, 히스토그램을 이용한 방법, 에지 정보를 이용한 방법, 지식 기반을 이용한 방법들이 있다. 본 논문에서는 region growing을 이용하여 MR 영상에서 뇌 영역을 추출하였다. 3차원 가시화를 위하여 오픈 소스인 VTK를 이용하여 Ray Casting 알고리즘으로 구현하였다. 그리고 의료영상에서 사용되는 각종 단면을 3차원 뇌 영상에서 재구성하였다. 256×256 크기의 71 뇌MR 영상 70장을 이용하여 실험하였다. 향후 연구과제로 MR 영상에서 뇌 영역추출방법과 원영상의 전처리 과정의 연구가 필요하다.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.1133-1138
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• 2023

This study analyzed the relationship between image parameters and specific absorption rate (SAR) in various sequence environments to optimize SAR. For this purpose, image parameters were adjusted for T2, T1, STIR, T1 FLAIR, and T2 FLAIR sequences in a 3.0T MRI, and the whole body (WB) SAR and head SAR calculated by the device were measured. Then, the SAR was evaluated by adjusting the number of images and the flip angle (FA) of the refocusing RF. As a result, SAR increased as the number of image increased in all sequences. T1 and T1 FLAIR had correlation coefficients (r) of 0.876, 0.876 (WB SAR, head SAR), 0.867, 0.867 (WB SAR, head SAR), respectively, and STIR had the highest correlation with 0.898 and 0.899 (WB SAR, head SAR). showed (p<0.05). When applied by increasing the refocusing FA, WB SAR and head SAR increased overall in all sequences. The T1 and T2 sequences showed high correlation with correlation coefficients (r) of 0.897, 0.898 (WB SAR, head SAR) and 0.914, 0.915 (WB SAR, head SAR), respectively, while the sequences to which the inversion recovery technique was applied had relatively low FA, showed less sensitivity to increase. Therefore, in a sequence with a relatively low TR, minimizing the number of image and applying the fast spin echo to reduce the refocusing FA in a sequence with a high duty cycle are effective in reducing SAR.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.157-166
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• 2014

Purpose : The purpose of this study is to determine whether adding an angled oblique sagittal plane to the routine shoulder MRI improves the diagnostic performance in the evaluation of supraspinatus tendon tears with arthroscopic correlation. Materials and Methods: The study included 121 patients who had a shoulder MRI followed by arthroscopy. Two radiologists separately evaluated the supraspinatus tendon for tears on shoulder MRI either with or without the angled oblique sagittal images. Arthroscopy was used as the reference standard. The sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing supraspinatus tendon tears were calculated and compared by using McNemar test. Interobserver and intertechnique variability in the interpretation of supraspinatus tendon tears were calculated as a kappa value. Results: Adding the angled oblique sagittal images to the standard shoulder MRI showed improvement in the sensitivity for diagnosing full-thickness supraspinatus tendon tears and also in the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for the detection of partial-thickness tears. However, there was no statistically significant difference in all of them between with and without the angled set. Interobserver agreement was substantial to almost perfect and intertechnique agreement was moderate. Conclusion: Adding an angled oblique sagittal plane image to the routine shoulder MRI showed no significantly different diagnostic performance in detecting the partial- and full-thickness supraspinatus tendon tears, compared to MRI without angled oblique sagittal plane.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.194-220
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• 1992

In recent years there has been a rapid influx of high cost MRI equipment into Korea. This diffusion has raised concerns about the changes it will bring for the health care utilization. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify socio-economic characteristics of MRI uses in Korea. A structured questionnaire was designed for this purpose, and 1, 091 users were surveyed at the 35 MRI units of 33 hospitals during a week, sometimes March 1992. The study reveals that high cost technology such as MRI, CT scanner is so prevalent in Korea. This is particularly the case in metropolitan areas. Among others, Seoul has the highest percentage of MRI equipment, 51.05%, Pusan 12.10% and Kwangju 11.9%. Unfortunately, most high cost technology equipments are foreign products. Thus, hospitals with such a high cost technology have difficulties in maintenance of the equipment. The average performance of MRI equipment has declined from 10.2 cases per day in 1988 to 7.16 cases in March 1992. Due to the rapid increase, the performance of MRI equipment seems to be deterioration. Male usere are dominant in the case of MRI use. The utilization rate has positively increased with the rise of educational level of users. The same is true for the level of income; the MRI utilization rate by income level shows that it is negatively proportional to income, which indicates that the poor have difficulties in the use of high cost technology. Particularly, the cost of MRI is so high that ordinary patients are unable to pay for it. For example, 86.3% of respondents have answered that the cost is too high even though they are insured by health insurance. This is the first empirical study on the use status of MRI. The information obtained in this study is sufficient to maintain that the Korean health insurance programme is urgently in need of improving the insurance benefit schemes. The easiest way to do this is to include provision of high cost technology service into the benefit package.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.1144-1149
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• 2020

The magnetic valve of the breast tissue expander generates imaging artifacts during MRI examination, so MRI examination is limited. To evaluate the effect of imaging artifacts on the diagnosis area for patients with breast tissue expander who need MRI examination. Imaging artifacts were measured using self-made phantoms and actual clinical conditions. Imaging artifacts were measured differently depending on the environment of 1.5 Tesla and 3.0 Tesla, and the effects of imaging artifacts were less in the C-spine and L-spine tests. If MRI due to breast cancer metastasis is absolutely necessary, head & neck examination and L-spine can be examined mainly at 1.5 Tesla, but some sequences may cause distortion due to image artifacts. In terms of safety, MRI scans of patients with breast tissue expanders can be performed conditionally at 1.5T, avoiding 3.0T.