• Journal of Medicine and Life Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.70-73
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• 2022

Here, we report a case of ultrasound-assisted subarachnoid block in a patient with severe kyphosis. A 69-year-old man was scheduled for metal removal from hip screws. He had a previous experience with subarachnoid block using the landmark-guided technique, but it was very difficult due to severe kyphosis. However, we could easily determine the correct needle insertion point using ultrasound imaging and performed a successful dural puncture on the first attempt. This case demonstrates the clinical usefulness of ultrasound imaging for subarachnoid blocks in patients with severe kyphosis.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.13-29
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• 2022

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, characterized by excessive accumulation of fat in the liver, is the most common chronic liver disease worldwide. The current standard for the detection of hepatic steatosis is liver biopsy; however, it is limited by invasiveness and sampling errors. Accordingly, MR spectroscopy and proton density fat fraction obtained with MRI have been accepted as non-invasive modalities for quantifying hepatic steatosis. Recently, various quantitative ultrasonography techniques have been developed and validated for the quantification of hepatic steatosis. These techniques measure various acoustic parameters, including attenuation coefficient, backscatter coefficient and speckle statistics, speed of sound, and shear wave elastography metrics. In this article, we introduce several representative quantitative ultrasonography techniques and their diagnostic value for the detection of hepatic steatosis.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.15-24
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• 2020

Mammography is the primary screening method for breast cancers. However, the sensitivity of mammographic screening is lower for dense breasts, which are an independent risk factor for breast cancers. Automated breast ultrasound (ABUS) is used as an adjunct to mammography for screening breast cancers in asymptomatic women with dense breasts. It is an effective screening modality with diagnostic accuracy comparable to that of handheld ultrasound (HHUS). Radiologists should be familiar with the unique display mode, imaging features, and artifacts in ABUS, which differ from those in HHUS. The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive review of the clinical significance of dense breasts and ABUS screening, describe the unique features of ABUS, and introduce the method of use and interpretation of ABUS.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.423-428
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• 2007

Programmable FIR filters are used in various signal processing tasks in medical ultrasound imaging, which are one of the major factors increasing hardware complexity. A widely used method to reduce the hardware complexity of a programmable FIR filter is to encode the filter coefficients in the canonic signed digit (CSD) format to minimize the number of nonzero digits (NZD) so that the multipliers for each filter coefficients can be replaced with fixed shifters and programmable multiplexers (PM). In this paper, a new structure for programmable FIR filters with a improved frequency response and a reduced hardware complexity compared to the conventional shift-and-add architecture using PM is proposed for implementing a very small portable ultrasound scanner. The CSD codes are optimized such that there exists at least one common nonzero digit between neighboring coefficients. Such common digits are then implemented with the same shifters. For comparison, synthesisable VHDL models for programmable FIR filters are developed based on the proposed and the conventional architectures. When these filters have the same hardware complexity, pass-band ana stop-band ripples of the proposed filter are lower than those of the conventional filter by about $0.01{\sim}0.19dB$ and by about $5{\sim}10dB$, respectively. For the same filter performance, the hardware complexity of the proposed architecture is reduced by more than 20% compare to the conventional SaA architecture.

• Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.47-52
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• 2016

Objective: This study surveyed the perceptions of physical therapists on muscle re-education through visual feedback obtained from rehabilitative ultrasound imaging (RUSI). Design: Survey. Methods: For this study, 500 physical therapists who participated in a refresher training held by the Seoul City Association in March 2015 were selected for a questionnaire-based survey. Subjects were randomly selected targets physiotherapists who participated in a refresher training.The questionnaire had 21 items in total. Questions 1 to 15 could be answered by everyone. However, questions 16 to 21 could be answered only by people who used RUSI. Results: The majority of respondents were aged 20 to 30 years. Respondents in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties accounted for 32.4%, 40.2%, 21.9%, and 5.6%respectively. Therapists with careers spanning one to 5 years accounted for 27.8%, while those with careers spanning 5 to 10 years and 10 to 15 years accounted for 34.6% and 17.0%, respectively. Those with careers over 20 years accounted for 9.2%. The types of work have not been various including work related to the nervous system (49.0%), the musculoskeletal system (41.5%), sports (0.7%), juvenile physical therapy (4.2%), and others (4.6%). Conclusions: In this study, we examined the perceptions of physical therapists on rehabilitation ultrasound imaging used in muscle re-education. We also examined how to use this technique. Many therapists who participated in the refresher training were found to be unaware of RUSI. In the future, further investigations on RUSI for muscle re-education are required through refresher training or training lectures at the national level.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.12
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• pp.66-71
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• 2014

This paper presents an analog front-end integrated circuit (IC) for medical ultrasound imaging systems using standard $0.18-{\mu}m$ CMOS process. The proposed front-end circuit includes the transmit part which consists of 15-V high-voltage pulser operating at 2.6 MHz, and the receive part which consists of switch and a low-power low-noise preamplifier. Depending on the operation mode, the output driver in the transmit pulser can be reconfigured as the switch in the receive path and thus the area of the overall front-end IC is reduced by over 70% in comparison to previous work. The designed single-channel front-end prototype consumes less than $0.045mm^2$ of core area and can be utilized as a key building block in highly-integrated multi-array ultrasound medical imaging systems.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.165-180
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• 2016

Objectives : This study is aimed to report the effectiveness of ultrasound-guided bee venom pharmacopuncture in rotator cuff disease patients. Methods : We treated 4 rotator cuff disease patients with ultrasound-guided bee venom pharmacopuncture and integrative Korean Medical Treatment. The Numeric Rating Scale(NRS), Shoulder Pain And Disability Index(SPADI), and Range Of Motion(ROM) were applied as outcome measures. Results : Comparing before and after treatment, both NRS and SPADI scores were decreased, and ROM was increased in all cases. And adverse events about bee venom pharmacopuncture have not been observed. Conclusion : This study shows ultrasound-guided bee venom pharmacopuncture has a meaningful clinical effect on the improving shoulder pain, disability and ROM.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.85-92
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• 1984

A new architecture of the Digital Scan Converter (DSC) for the linear-scan ultrasound medical imaging systems is proposed and its hardware implementation is reported. While the conventional DSC merely displays the acquisited data and does nor allow access to the frame memory, it is possible, in the new system, to access to the frame memory for further imaging processing so as to obtain useful information for medical diagnosis. Image processing can be performed either by a special pupose processor, or by VAX 11/780. The system is made to operate asyncronously to increase the frame rate with tags assigned to the data. The proposed DSC was designed to be used without much modification for the sector scan system as well.

• Imaging Science in Dentistry
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.301-306
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• 2019

Purpose: This report presents a procedure for performing power Doppler ultrasound-guided sialography using the phenomenon of increased blood flow and illustrates its application to practical patient cases. Materials and Methods: The salivary gland was scanned using ultrasound equipment (GE LOGIQ5 Expert^® device; GE Medical Systems, Milwaukee, WI, USA) to identify pathological findings related to the patient's chief complaint. To identify the orifice of the main duct, it should be cannulated using a lacrimal dilator. After inserting the catheter into the cannulated main duct, the position of the catheter within the duct was confirmed by ultrasound. A contrast agent was injected until the patient felt fullness, and ultrasound (B-mode) was used to confirm whether the contrast agent filled the main canal and secondary and tertiary ducts. Then, power Doppler ultrasound was performed to determine whether the salivary gland had increased blood flow. Results: In 2 cases in this report, a power Doppler ultrasound scan showed a significant increase in blood flow after contrast medium injection, which was not observed on a preoperative scan. Conclusion: Power Doppler ultrasound was found to be a simple, safe, and effective tool for real-time sialography monitoring.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7731-7736
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• 2013

Aim: To compare the agreement of screening breast mammography plus ultrasound and reviewed mammography alone in asymptomatic women. Materials and Methods: All breast imaging data were obtained for women who presented for routine medical checkup at National Cancer Institute (NCI), Thailand from January 2010 to June 2013. A radiologist performed masked interpretations of selected mammographic images retrieved from the computer imaging database. Previous mammography, ultrasound reports and clinical data were blinded before film re-interpretation. Kappa values were calculated to assess the agreement between BIRADS assessment category and BIRADS classification of density obtained from the mammography with ultrasound in imaging database and reviewed mammography alone. Results: Regarding BIRADS assessment category, concordance between the two interpretations were good. Observed agreement was 96.1%. There was moderate agreement in which the Kappa value was 0.58% (95%CI; 0.45, 0.87). The agreement of BI-RADS classification of density was substantial, with a Kappa value of 0.60 (95%CI; 0.54, 0.66). Different results were obtained when a subgroup of patients aged ${\geq}60$ years were analyzed. In women in this group, observed agreement was 97.6%. There was also substantial agreement in which the Kappa value was 0.74% (95%CI; 0.49, 0.98). Conclusions: The present study revealed that concordance between mammography plus ultrasound and reviewed mammography alone in asymptomatic women is good. However, there is just moderate agreement which can be enhanced if age-targeted breast imaging is performed. Substantial agreement can be achieved in women aged ${\geq}60$. Adjunctive breast ultrasound is less important in women in this group.