• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.4689-4692
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• 2013

Ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) is a costly diagnostic item with a low yield in identifying the tiny proportion of nodules that actually represent malignant disease. Our aim through this study was to obtain an ultrasound (US) score for selecting subcentimeter-sized thyroid nodules requiring FNAB in eastern China. Some 248 patients for a total of 270 thyroid nodules less than 1 cm in diameter underwent FNAB and subsequent surgery from January 2006 to March 2012 at our hospital. The clinicopathological and US data from all the nodules were analyzed retrospectively. An US score was developed on the basis of independent predictive factors for malignancy. Irregular shape, hypoechogenicity, no well-defined margin, presence of calcifications and ratio between antero-posterior and transversal diameters (AP/TR) ${\geq}1$ were independent predictive factors for malignancy on logistic regression analysis. US score were statistically significant, with ${\leq}2$ favoring benignancy with an 80.3% sensitivity and a 72.7% specificity. US score is useful for differentiating between malignant and benign subcentimeter-sized thyroid nodules. We suggest FNAB for nodules when the US score is higher than 2.

• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.303-310
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• 2022

Background: Open gastrectomy causes severe postoperative pain. Therefore, we investigated the opioid-sparing effect of the ultrasound-guided bilateral erector spinae plane block (ESPB) after open gastrectomy. Methods: Adult patients undergoing open gastrectomy were randomly assigned to either the ESPB group (ESPB + fentanyl based intravenous patient-controlled analgesia [IV-PCA]) or a control group (fentanyl based IV-PCA only). The primary outcome was total fentanyl equivalent consumption during the first 24 hour postoperatively. Secondary outcomes were pain intensities using a numeric rating scale at the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) and at 3, 6, 12, and 24 hour postoperatively, and the amount of fentanyl equivalent consumption during the PACU stay and at 3, 6, and 12 hour postoperatively, and the time to the first request for rescue analgesia. Results: Fifty-eight patients were included in the analysis. There was no significant difference in total fentanyl equivalent consumption during the first 24 hour postoperatively between the two groups (P = 0.471). Pain intensities were not significantly different between the groups except during the PACU stay and 3 hour postoperatively (P < 0.001, for both). Time to the first rescue analgesia in the ward was longer in the ESPB group than the control group (P = 0.045). Conclusions: Ultrasound-guided ESPB did not decrease total fentanyl equivalent consumption during the first 24 hour after open gastrectomy. It only reduced postoperative pain intensity until 3 hour postoperatively compared with the control group. Ultrasound-guided single-shot ESPB cannot provide an efficient opioid-sparing effect after open gastrectomy.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.74 no.2
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• pp.74-78
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• 2013

A 61-year-old woman came to the hospital with dyspnea and pleural effusion on chest radiography. She underwent repeated thoracentesis, transbronchial lung biopsy, bronchoalveolar lavage, and thoracoscopic pleural biopsy with talc pleurodesis, but diagnosis of her was uncertain. Positron emission tomography showed multiple lymphadenopathies, so she underwent endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration of mediastinal lymph nodes. Here, we report a case of malignant pleural mesothelioma that was eventually diagnosed by endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration. This is an unusual and first case in Korea.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.40-45
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• 2008

Therapeutic ultrasound which is developed for rehabilitation therapy have already been used for healing joint contracture, synechia, acute and chronic inflammatory diseases. Medical devices for pain-relief and healing using therapeutic ultrasound are actively being developed. This study measured the change of PTT with the transmitted ultrasound through the human body to find out the increase of compliance of blood vessels. Measurement method of PTT in this study is employed as useful ways to acquire physiological information of patients in the clinical case in order to measure the change of mechanical characteristics of blood vessels. This study confirmed the PTT change of rehabilitation patients through the thermal effects of ultrasound by using PTT and also found that it is possible to increase PTT by adjusting the warm water and ultrasound. The increase of PTT means the decrease of the pulse wave velocity from the cardiovascular system to the peripheral arteries. The physiological effects occurred using the warm water and ultrasound.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.22-29
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• 2006

This paper proposes an efficient array beamforming method using spatial matched filtering for ultrasound imaging. In the proposed method, ultrasound waves are transmitted from an array subaperture with fixed transmit focus as in conventional array imaging. At receive, radio frequency (RF) echo signals from each receive channel are passed through a spatial matched filter that is constructed based on the system transmit-receive spatial impulse response. The filtered echo signals are then summed. The filter remaps and spatially registers the acoustic energy from each element so that the pulse-echo impulse response of the summed output is focused with acceptably low side lobes. Analytical beam pattern analysis and simulation results using a linear array show that the proposed spatial filtering method can provide more improved spatial resolution and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) compared with conventional dynamic receive focusing (DRF) method by implementing two-way dynamically focused beam pattern throughout the field.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.179-188
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• 2019

In ultrasound telemedicine, it is important to reduce the size of the data by compressing the ultrasound image when sending it. Ultrasound images can be divided into image context and other information consisting of patient ID, date, and several letters. Between them, ultrasound context is very important information for diagnosis and should be securely preserved as much as possible. In several previous papers, ultrasound compression methods were proposed to compress ultrasound context and other information into different compression parameters. This ultrasound compression method minimized the loss of ultrasound context while greatly compressing other information. This paper proposed the method of automatic segmentation of ultrasound context to overcome the limitation of the previously described ultrasound compression method. This algorithm was designed to robust for various ultrasound device and to enable real-time operation to maintain the benefits of ultrasound imaging machine. The operation time of extracting ultrasound context through the proposed segmentation method was measured, and it took 311.11 ms. In order to optimize the algorithm, the ultrasound context was segmented with down sampled input image. When the resolution of the input image was reduced by half, the computational time was 126.84 ms. When the resolution was reduced by one-third, it took 45.83 ms to segment the ultrasound context. As a result, we verified through experiments that the proposed method works in real time.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.231-237
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• 2021

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the importance of hospital hygiene and infection control in hospital settings. To raise hygiene awareness among ultrasound technicians, we evaluated the hygiene status of an ultrasound room, in comparison with that of objects used in daily life. Using the swab method, the following surfaces were examined: eight surfaces in the ultrasound room including the ultrasound probes (convex, linear, sector, 3D), ultrasound track ball, ultrasound keyboard, ultrasound gel (sealed and in use) and pillow as well as four surfaces of everyday objects including subway handles, common computer keyboards, common computer mouse, and cell phones. The streak plate technique was used for inoculation into media, which was observed for the formation of bacterial colonies following incubation for 24 h. Six bacterial strains were detected from objects used in the ultrasound room, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Four strains of bacteria were detected on surfaces of everyday objects. The equipment and accessories used in an ultrasound room can act as vehicles for infecting patients. Establishment of standardized hygiene protocols and periodic training of the staff are recommended to avoid cross-infection.

• Clinical Pain
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.7-14
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• 2021

Musculoskeletal ultrasound has evolved as the essential tool to diagnose and guide intervention procedures in people with neuromusculoskeletal conditions. Image optimization and understanding device operations are core components for ultrasound guided intervention procedure training. All ultrasound machines share the common operative features and there are various buttons for the features in the device control panel. Ultrasound "knobology" refers to the thorough understanding of imaging optimization. This review addressed basic information for the transducers, depth setting, gain and focus control, different modes focusing on brightness and doppler modes.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.116-117
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• 2024

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2002.09a
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• pp.489-491
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• 2002

The need for video diagnosis in medicine has been increased and real-time transfer of digital video will be an important component in PACS and telemedicine. But, Network environment has certain limitations that the required throughput can not satisfy quality of service (QoS). MPEG-4 ratified as a moving video standard by the ISO/IEC provides very efficient video coding covering the various ranges of low bit-rate in network environment. We implemented MPEG-4 CODEC (coder/decoder) and applied various compression ratios to moving ultrasound images. These images were displayed in random order on a client monitor passed through network. Radiologists determined subjective opinion scores for evaluating clinically acceptable image quality and then these were statistically processed in the t-Test method. Moreover the MPEG-4 decoded images were quantitatively analyzed by computing peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) to objectively evaluate image quality. The bit-rate to maintain clinically acceptable image quality was up to 0.8Mbps. We successfully implemented the adaptive throughput or bit-rate relative to the image quality of ultrasound sequences used MPEG-4 that can be applied for diagnostic performance in real-time.