• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• 제24권4호
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• pp.338-348
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• 2023

Objective: Patients with a history of ischemic stroke are at risk for a second ischemic stroke. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between carotid plaque enhancement on perfluorobutane microbubble contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) and future recurrent stroke, and to determine whether plaque enhancement can contribute to risk assessment for recurrent stroke compared with the Essen Stroke Risk Score (ESRS). Materials and Methods: This prospective study screened 151 patients with recent ischemic stroke and carotid atherosclerotic plaques at our hospital between August 2020 and December 2020. A total of 149 eligible patients underwent carotid CEUS, and 130 patients who were followed up for 15-27 months or until stroke recurrence were analyzed. Plaque enhancement on CEUS was investigated as a possible risk factor for stroke recurrence and as a possible adjunct to ESRS. Results: During follow-up, 25 patients (19.2%) experienced recurrent stroke. Patients with plaque enhancement on CEUS had an increased risk of stroke recurrence events (22/73, 30.1%) compared to those without plaque enhancement (3/57, 5.3%), with an adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 38.264 (95% confidence interval [CI]:14.975-97.767; P < 0.001) according to a multivariable Cox proportional hazards model analysis, indicating that the presence of carotid plaque enhancement was a significant independent predictor of recurrent stroke. When plaque enhancement was added to the ESRS, the HR for stroke recurrence in the high-risk group compared to that in the low-risk group (2.188; 95% CI, 0.025-3.388) was greater than that of the ESRS alone (1.706; 95% CI, 0.810-9.014). A net of 32.0% of the recurrence group was reclassified upward appropriately by the addition of plaque enhancement to the ESRS. Conclusion: Carotid plaque enhancement was a significant and independent predictor of stroke recurrence in patients with ischemic stroke. Furthermore, the addition of plaque enhancement improved the risk stratification capability of the ESRS.

• Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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• 제52권5호
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• pp.545-549
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• 2014

Sparganosis is an infection with a parasitic tapeworm larva that occurs by eating infected foods or drinking contaminated water. The larvae can migrate to a tissue or muscle in the chest, abdominal wall, extremities, eyes, brain, urinary tract, pleura, pericardium, spinal canal, or scrotum. Herein, we report a 5-month old infant with scrotal sparganosis who was initially suspected to have a scrotal inflammatory mass with a history of applying raw frog meat into the umbilicus. Preoperative ultrasound examinations and computed tomography (CT) scanning misdiagnosed the mass as a scrotal teratoma. The scrotal mass was surgically removed, and the histopathology proved it to be scrotal sparganosis. This case displays the youngest patient ever reported with scrotal sparganosis, and the first description of CT characteristics of scrotal sparganosis. A detailed medical history is necessary for patients with scrotal masses suspected of sparganosis. In addition, ultrasound and CT examinations are helpful to rule out other causes of a scrotal mass.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 제어로봇시스템학회 1995년도 Proceedings of the Korea Automation Control Conference, 10th (KACC); Seoul, Korea; 23-25 Oct. 1995
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• pp.248-251
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• 1995

Nowadays, the internal images of a human body can be easily provided by the ultrasound imaging, the X-ray CT, or the MRI device, among which the ultrasound imaging device has good resolution for soft tissues of a human body compared with the other devices. Furthermore, the use of ultrasound imaging devices will increase in future especially in the obstetrics, territory, since it does not give harm to the human body. Although several techniques have been investigated until now in order to extract organs from ultrasound images, very few of them have achieved satisfactory results because of low contrast and high noise nature of images. This paper proposes a technique for automatic extraction of the gall bladder area from ultrasound images. The proposed technique first extracts a small reliable area of a gall bladder from an ultrasound image employing smoothing, binarization, expanding and shrinking, and labeling, and then expands the area referring to the binarized version of the original image. The technique is examined its performance by real ultrasound images of a gall bladder and satisfactory results are obtained. Some problems to be solved are discussed finally.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제37권1호
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• pp.31-38
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• 2016

For the patients with bladder dysfunction, measurement of urine volume inside the bladder is very critical to avoid bladder failure. In measuring urine volume inside a bladder, low-resolution 3D ultrasound images are widely used. However, urine volume estimation from 3D ultrasound images is prone to big errors and inconsistency because of low spatial resolution and low signal-to-noise ratio of ultrasound images. We developed a new robust volume estimation algorithm which is not computationally expensive. We tested the algorithm on a lab-built ultrasound bladder phantom and volunteers. The average error rate of the human bladder volume estimation was 5.9% which was better than the commercial machine.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• 제53권5호
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• pp.313-316
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• 2020

Esophageal perforation after endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration for mediastinal staging is a rare but severe complication. We report 2 cases of patients with esophageal perforation who were treated using video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery in combination with esophageal stenting. Through these cases, the feasibility of minimally invasive thoracic surgery was evaluated.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• 제28권2호
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• pp.165-172
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• 2011

Objectives : The objective of this case report was to observe the effect of musculoskeletal ultrasound-guided acupotomy therapy on posterior headache caused by traffic accident. Methods : Musculoskeletal ultrasound-guided acupotomy therapy was performed to two patients whose brain MRI or CT results were normal, but posterior headache did not improve with general eastern medical treatment. Results : One patient's VAS(visual analogue scale) of posterior headache was decreased for the first time after ultrasound-guided acupotomy therapy, and steadily reduced. The other patient's VAS was also decreased for the first time after musculoskeletal ultrasound-guided acupotomy therapy. Two patient's Korean HIT-6(Korean headache impact test-6) scores were decreased after one month. Conclusions : If general eastern medical treatment had little effect on traffic accident induced posterior headache, musculoskeletal ultrasound-guided acupotomy therapy can be applied.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제33권1호
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• pp.32-38
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• 2012

Recently, several ultrasound imaging techniques for tissue characterization have been developed. Among them, ultrasound elastography is regarded as the most promising modality and has been rapidly developed. One of ultrasound elastography techniques is shear modulus imaging. Normal and cancerous tissues show big difference of shear moduli and they have good image contrast. However shear wave elastography requires more complicated hardware and more computations for image reconstruction algorithm. Therefore new efficient techniques are being developed. In this paper, we have developed a very flexible ultrasound system for elastography experiments. The developed system has capabilities to acquire ultrasound RF data of all channels and generate arbitrary ultrasound pulse sequences. It has a huge amount of memories for RF data acquisition and a simple and flexible pulse generator. We have verified the performance of the system showing conventional B-mode images and preliminary results of elastography. The developed system will be used to verify our own reconstruction algorithm and to develop more efficient elastography techniques.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.493-497
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• 2012

This study was conducted to retrospectively evaluate the pattern of contrast enhancement with SonoVue on gray-scale ultrasonography of hepatic angiomyolipoma (HAML). Imaging features of 33 pathologically proven HAML lesions in 33 patients who underwent baseline ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) were assessed retrospectively. All lesions were enhanced in the arterial phase and showed whole-tumor filling in. Thirty-two of 33 (97%) lesions showed early positive enhancement in the arterial phase. Twenty-three of these exhibited isoechoic or hyperechoic features in the portal phase. HAML demonstrate characteristic manifestations with SonoVue-enhanced real-time gray-scale ultrasonography.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제36권5호
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• pp.162-168
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• 2015

In this study, we suggested the performance and safety testing guideline for low intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) represented by the ultrasound fracture treatment device and cartilage treatment device and low intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) represented by ultrasonic face lifting device. For these study, the international standards and management regulations of Korea, Japan and United State were analyzed. And the usefulness and applicability were evaluated by testing with commercial equipment and reflecting the views of the industry and experts. As a result of this study, the safety and performance test guidelines for low intensity therapeutic ultrasound device were proposed by presenting the 10 items for LIPUS and 12 items for LIFU. The suggested guidelines are considered a high utilization in the domestic testing and approval authorities. And they are also thought to be useful to new technology development.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
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• 제19권3호
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• pp.321-325
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• 1998

일반적으로 현재의 초음파 의료영상시스템에서 지연시간의 계산에 사용하는 음속도는 인체의연조직에서의 평균속도인 1540m/s 의 값을 이용한다. 그러나 사람마다 혹은 매질의 특성에 따라 초음파의 속도가 크게 차이가 나서 고정된 속도를 이용한 집속 지연시간 계산에는 오차가 발생한다. 이는 해상도의 저하를 가져올 뿐만 아니라, 매질의 기하학적인 크기나 거리정보가 필요한, 심장이나 신장의 용적을 계산과 같은 경우에는 큰 오차를 가져온다. 따라서 매질의 속도를 정확히 구하는 것이 해상도 향상의 중요한 관건의 하나임을 알 수가 있다. 본 논문에서는 이를 위해 매질내의 관심영역에서의 밝기를 최대화시켜주는 접속지연시간 프로파일을 구해 매질 내에서의 옴파의 속도를 측정하여 실제 초음파 팬텀에 적응하여 좋은 결과를 얻을 수 있었다.