• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.361-370
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• 2009

The image quality management of bone mineral density is the responsibility and duty of radiologists who carry out examinations. However, inaccurate conclusions due to lack of understanding and ignorance regarding the methodology of image quality management can be a fatal error to the patient. Therefore, objective of this paper is to understand proper image quality management and enumerate methods for examiners and patients, thereby ensuring the reliability of bone mineral density exams. The accuracy and precision of bone mineral density measurements must be at the highest level so that actual biological changes can be detected with even slight changes in bone mineral density. Accuracy and precision should be continuously preserved for image quality of machines. Those factors will contribute to ensure the reliability in bone mineral density exams. Proper equipment management or control methods are set with correcting equipment each morning and after image quality management, a phantom, recommended from the manufacturer, is used for ten to twenty-five measurements in search of a mean value with a permissible range of ${\pm}1.5%$ set as standard. There needs to be daily measurement inspections on the phantom or at least inspections three times a week in order to confirm the existence or nonexistence of changes in values in actual bone mineral density. in addition, bone mineral density measurements were evaluated and recorded following the rules of Shewhart control chart. This type of management has to be conducted for the installation and movement of equipment. For the management methods of inspectors, evaluation of the measurement precision was conducted by testing the reproducibility of the exact same figures without any real biological changes occurring during reinspection. Bone mineral density inspection was applied as the measurement method for patients either taking two measurements thirty times or three measurements fifteen times. An important point when taking measurements was after a measurement whether it was the second or third examination, it was required to descend from the table and then reascend. With a 95% confidence level, the precision error produced from the measurement bone mineral figures came to 2.77 times the minimum of the biological bone mineral density change. The value produced can be stated as the least significant change (LSC) and in the case the value is greater, it can be stated as a section of genuine biological change. From the initial inspection to equipment moving and shifter, management must be carried out and continued in order to achieve the effects. The enforcement of proper quality control of radiologists performing bone mineral density inspections which brings about the durability extensions of equipment and accurate results of calculations will help the assurance of reliable inspections.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.34
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• pp.61-72
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• 2022

Purpose: Conventional CBCT(Cone-beam Computed-tomography) caused an error in the target volume due to organ movement in the area affected by respiratory movement. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the usefulness of accuracy and time spent using the Gated CBCT function, which reduces errors when performing RGRT(respiratory gated radiation therapy), and to examine the appropriateness of phase. Materials and methods: To evaluate the usefulness of Gated CBCT, the QUASAR^TM respiratory motion phantom was used in the Truebeam STx^TM. Using lead marker inserts, Gated CBCT was scaned 5 times for every 20~80% phase, 30~70% phase, and 40~60% phase to measure the blurring length of the lead marker, and the distance the lead marker moves from the top phase to the end of the phase was measured 5 times. Using Cedar Solid Tumor Inserts, 4DCT was scanned for every phase, 20-80%, 30-70%, and 40-60%, and the target volume was contoured and the length was measured five times in the axial direction (S-I direction). Result: In Gated CBCT scaned using lead marker inserts, the axial moving distance of the lead marker on average was measured to be 4.46cm in the full phase, 3.11cm in the 20-80% phase, 1.94cm in the 30-70% phase, 0.90cm in the 40-60% phase. In Fluoroscopy, the axial moving distance of the lead marker on average was 4.38cm and the distance on average from the top phase to the beam off phase was 3.342cm in the 20-80% phase, 3.342cm in the 30-70% phase, and 0.84cm in the 40-60% phase. Comparing the results, the difference in the full phase was 0.08cm, the 20~80% phase was 0.23cm, the 30~70% phase was 0.10cm, and the 40~60% phase was 0.07cm. The axial lengths of ITV(Internal Target Volume) and PTV(Planning Target Volume) contoured by 4DCT taken using cedar solid tumor inserts were measured to be 6.40cm and 7.40cm in the full phase, 4.96cm and 5.96cm in the 20~80% phase, 4.42cm and 5.42cm in the 30~70% phase, and 2.95cm and 3.95cm in the 40~60% phase. In the Gated CBCT, the axial lengths on average was measured to be 6.35 cm in the full phase, 5.25 cm in the 20-80% phase, 4.04 cm in the 30-70% phase, and 3.08 cm in the 40-60% phase. Comparing the results, it was confirmed that the error was within ±8.5% of ITV Conclusion: Conventional CBCT had a problem that errors occurred due to organ movement in areas affected by respiratory movement, but through this study, obtained an image similar to the target volume of the setting phase using Gated CBCT and verified its usefulness. However, as the setting phase decreases, the scan time was increases. Therefore, considering the scan time and the error in setting phase, It is recommended to apply it to patients with respiratory coordinated stereotactic radiation therapy using a wide phase of 30-70% or more.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.13-19
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• 2011

Purpose: It's essential to minimize the tumor motion and identify the exact location of the lesions to achieve the improvement in radiation therapy efficiency during SBRT. In this study, we made the established compression belt to reduce respiratory motion and evaluated the usefulness of clinical application in SBRT. Materials and Methods: We analyzed the merits and demerits of the established compression belt to reduce the respiratory motion and improved the reproducibility and precision in use. To evaluate the usefulness of improved compression belt for respiratory motion reduction in SBRT, firstly, we reviewed the spiral CT images acquired in inspiration and expiration states of 8 lung cancer cases, respectively, and analyzed the three dimensional tumor motion related to respiration. To evaluate isodose distribution, secondly, we also made the special phantom using EBT2 film (Gafchronic, ISP, USA) and we prepared the robot (Cartesian Robot-2 Axis, FARARCM4H, Samsung Mechatronics, Korea) to reproduce three dimensional tumor motion. And analysis was made for isodose curves and two dimensional isodose profiles with reproducibility of respiratory motion on the basis of CT images. Results: A respiratory motion reduction compression belt (Velcro type) that has convenient use and good reproducibility was developed. The moving differences of three dimensional tumor motion of lung cancer cases analyzed by CT images were mean 3.2 mm, 4.3 mm and 13 mm each in LR, AP and CC directions. The result of characteristic change in dose distribution using the phantom and rectangular coordinates robot showed that the distortion of isodose has great differences, mean length was 4.2 mm; the differences were 8.0% and 16.8% each for cranio-caudal and 8.1% and 10.9% each for left-right directions in underdose below the prescribed dose. Conclusion: In this study, we could develop the convenient and efficient compression belt that can make the organs' motion minimize. With this compression belt, we confirmed that underdose due to respiration can be coped with when CTV-PTV margins of mean 6 mm would be used. And we conclude that the respiratory motion reduction compression belt we developed can be used for clinical effective aids along with the gating system.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.107-116
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• 2011

Respiratory gated radiation therapy and stereotactic body radiation therapy require identical tumor motions during each treatment with the motion detected in treatment planning CT. Therefore, this study developed a tumor motion monitoring and analysis system during the treatments employing RPM data, gated setup OBI images and a data analysis software. A respiratory training and guiding program which improves the regularity of breathing was used to patients. The breathing signal was obtained by RPM and the recorded data in the 4D console was read after treatment. The setup OBI images obtained gated at 0% and 50% of breathing phases were used to detect the tumor motion range in crenio-caudal direction. By matching the RPM data recorded at the OBI imaging time, a factor which converts the RPM motion to the tumor motion was computed. RPM data was entered to the institute developed data analysis software and the maximum, minimum, average of the breathing motion as well as the standard deviation of motion amplitude and period was computed. The computed result is exported in an excel file. The conversion factor was applied to the analyzed data to estimate the tumor motion. The accuracy of the developed method was tested by using a moving phantom, and the efficacy was evaluated for 10 stereotactic body radiation therapy patients. For the sine wave motion of the phantom with 4 sec of period and 2 cm of peak-to-peak amplitude, the measurement was slightly larger (4.052 sec) and the amplitude was smaller (1.952 cm). For patient treatment, one patient was evaluated not to qualified to SBRT due to the usability of the breathing, and in one patient case, the treatment was changed to respiratory gated treatment due the larger motion range of the tumor than treatment planed motion. The developed method and data analysis program was useful to estimate the tumor motion during treatment.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.174-181
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• 2005

Purpose: Reduction of respiratory motion artifacts in PET images was studied using respiratory-gated PET (RGPET) with moving phantom. Especially a method of generating simulated helical CT images from 4D-CT datasets was developed and applied to a respiratory specific RGPET images for more accurate attenuation correction. Materials and Methods: Using a motion phantom with periodicity of 6 seconds and linear motion amplitude of 26 mm, PET/CT (Discovery ST: GEMS) scans with and without respiratory gating were obtained for one syringe and two vials with each volume of 3, 10, and 30 ml respectively. RPM (Real-Time Position Management, Varian) was used for tracking motion during PET/CT scanning. Ten datasets of RGPET and 4D-CT corresponding to every 10% phase intervals were acquired. from the positions, sizes, and uptake values of each subject on the resultant phase specific PET and CT datasets, the correlations between motion artifacts in PET and CT images and the size of motion relative to the size of subject were analyzed. Results: The center positions of three vials in RGPET and 4D-CT agree well with the actual position within the estimated error. However, volumes of subjects in non-gated PET images increase proportional to relative motion size and were overestimated as much as 250% when the motion amplitude was increased two times larger than the size of the subject. On the contrary, the corresponding maximal uptake value was reduced to about 50%. Conclusion: RGPET is demonstrated to remove respiratory motion artifacts in PET imaging, and moreover, more precise image fusion and more accurate attenuation correction is possible by combining with 4D-CT.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.35
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• pp.7-13
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• 2023

Purpose: In this study, we evaluated the effect of using a customized bolus on dose delivery in the treatment plan when cervical cancer protruded out of the body along with the uterus and evaluated reproducibility in patient set-up. Materials & Methods: The treatment plan used the Eclipse Treatment Planning System (Version 15.5.0, Varian, USA) and the treatment machine was VitalBeam (Varian Medical Systems, USA). The radiotherapy technique used 6 MV energy in the AP/PA direction with 3D-CRT. The prescribed dose is 1.8 Gy/fx and the total dose is 50.4 Gy/28 fx. Semiflex TM31010 (PTW, Germany) was used as the ion chamber, and the dose distribution was analyzed and evaluated by comparing the planned and measured dose according to each position movement and the tumor center dose. The first measurement was performed at the center by applying a customized bolus to the phantom, and the measurement was performed while moving in the range of -2 cm to +2 cm in the X, Y, and Z directions from the center assuming a positional error. It was measured at intervals of 0.5 cm, the Y-axis direction was measured up to ±3 cm, and the situation in which Bolus was set-up incorrectly was also measured. The measured doses were compared based on doses corrected to CT Hounsfield Unit (HU) 240 of silicon instead of the phantom's air cavity. Result: The treatment dose distribution was uniform when the customized bolus was used, and there was no significant difference between the prescribed dose and the actual measured value even when positional errors occurred. It was confirmed that the existing sheet-type bolus is difficult to compensate for irregularly shaped tumors protruding outside the body, but customized Bolus is found to be useful in delivering treatment doses uniformly.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.14-20
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• 2009

We measured the dose distribution for spinal cord and tumor using Gafchromic film, applying 3D and 4D-Treatment Planning for lung tumor within the phantom. A measured dose distribution was compared with a calculated dose distribution generated from 3D radiation treatment planning and 4D radiation treatment planning system. The agreement of the dose distribution in tumor for 3D and 4D treatment planning was 90.6%, 97.64% using gamma index computed for a distance to agreement of 1 mm and a dose difference of 3%. However, a gamma agreement index of 3% dose difference tolerence of and 2 mm distance to agreement, the accordance of the dose distribution around cord for 3D and 4D radiation treatment planning was 57.13%, 90.4%. There are significant differences between a calculated dose and a measured dose for 3D radiation treatment planning, no significant differences for 4D treatment planning. The results provide the effectiveness of the 4D treatment planning as compared to 3D. We suggest that the 4-dimensional treatment planning should be considered in the case where such equipments as Cyberknife with the real time tracking system are used to treat the tumors in the moving organ.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.21 no.12
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• pp.1345-1354
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• 2020

Objective: To evaluate radiomics analysis in studies on mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) using a radiomics quality score (RQS) system to establish a roadmap for further improvement in clinical use. Materials and Methods: PubMed MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched using the terms 'cognitive impairment' or 'Alzheimer' or 'dementia' and 'radiomic' or 'texture' or 'radiogenomic' for articles published until March 2020. From 258 articles, 26 relevant original research articles were selected. Two neuroradiologists assessed the quality of the methodology according to the RQS. Adherence rates for the following six key domains were evaluated: image protocol and reproducibility, feature reduction and validation, biologic/clinical utility, performance index, high level of evidence, and open science. Results: The hippocampus was the most frequently analyzed (46.2%) anatomical structure. Of the 26 studies, 16 (61.5%) used an open source database (14 from Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative and 2 from Open Access Series of Imaging Studies). The mean RQS was 3.6 out of 36 (9.9%), and the basic adherence rate was 27.6%. Only one study (3.8%) performed external validation. The adherence rate was relatively high for reporting the imaging protocol (96.2%), multiple segmentation (76.9%), discrimination statistics (69.2%), and open science and data (65.4%) but low for conducting test-retest analysis (7.7%) and biologic correlation (3.8%). None of the studies stated potential clinical utility, conducted a phantom study, performed cut-off analysis or calibration statistics, was a prospective study, or conducted cost-effectiveness analysis, resulting in a low level of evidence. Conclusion: The quality of radiomics reporting in MCI and AD studies is suboptimal. Validation is necessary using external dataset, and improvements need to be made to feature reproducibility, feature selection, clinical utility, model performance index, and pursuits of a higher level of evidence.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.91-104
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• 2000

Recently linear accelerator in radiation therapy in asymmetric field has been easily used since the improvement and capability of asymmetrical field adjustment attached to the machine. It has been thought there have been some significant errors in dose calculation when asymmetrical radiation fields have been utilized in practice of radiation treatments if the fundamental data for dose calculation have been measured in symmetrical standard fields. This study investigated how much the measured data of dose distributions and their isodose curves are different between in asymmetrical and symmetrical standard fields, and how much there difference affect the error in dose calculation in conventional method measured in symmetrical standard field. The distributions of radiation dose were measured by photon diode detector in the water phantom (RFA-300P, Scanditronix, Sweden) as tissue equivalent material on utilization of 6 MV linear accelerator with source surface distance (SSD) 1000 mm. The photon diode detector has the velocity of 1 mm per second from water surface to 250 mm depth in the field size of $40mm{\times}40mm\;to\;250mm{\times}250mm\;symmetric\;field\;and\;40mm{\times}20mm\;to\;250mm{\times}125mm$ asymmetrical fields. The measurements of percent depth dose (PDD) and subsequent plotting of their isodose curves were performed from water surface to 250mm dmm from Y-center axis in $100mm{\times}50mm$ field in order to absence the variability of depth dose according to increasing field sizes and their affects to plotted isodose curves. The difference of PDD between symmetric and asymmetric field was maximum $4.1\%\;decrease\;in\;40mm{\times}20mm\;field,\;maximum\;6.6\%\;decrease\;in\;100mm{\times}50mm\;and\;maximum\;10.2\%\;decrease\;200mm{\times}100mm$, the larger decrease difference of PDD as the greater field size and as greater the depth, The difference of PDD between asymmetrical field and equivalent square field showed maximum $2.4\%\;decrease\;in\;60mm{\times}30mm\;field,\;maximum\;4.8\%\;decrease\;in\;150mm{\times}75mm\;and\;maximum\;6.1\%\;decrease\;in\;250mm{\times}125mm$, and the larger decreased differenced PDD as the greater field size and as greater the depth, these differences of PDD were out of $5\%$ of dose calculation as defined by international Commission on radiation unit and Measurements(ICRU). In the dose distribution of asymmetrical field (half beam) the plotted isodose curves were observed to have deviations by decreased PDD as greater as the blocking of the beam moved closer to the central axis, and as the asymmetrical field increased by moving the block 10 mm keeping away from the central axis, the PDD increased and plotted isodose curves were gradually more flattened, due to reduced amount of the primary beam and the fraction of low energy soft radiations by passing thougepth in asymmetrical field by moving independent jaw each 10 h beam flattening filter. As asymmetrical radiation field as half beam radiation technique is used, the radiation dosimetry calculated in utilizing the fundamental data which measured in standard symmetrical field should be converted on bases of nearly measured data in asymmetrical field, measured beam data flies of various asymmetrical field in various energy and be necessary in each institution.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.291-297
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• 2010

This study examined the dosimetric influence of implanted gold markers in proton therapy and the effects of their positions in the spread-out Bragg peak (SOBP) proton beam. The implanted cylindrical gold markers were 3 mm long and 1.2 mm in diameter. The dosimetric influence of the gold markers was determined with markers at various locations in a proton-beam field. Spatial dose distributions were measured using a three-dimensional moving water phantom and a stereotactic diode detector with an effective diameter of 0.5 mm. Also, a film dosimetry was performed using Gafchromic External Beam Treatment (EBT) film. The GEANT4 simulation toolkit was used for Monte-Carlo simulations to confirm the measurements and to construct the dose-volume histogram with implanting markers. Motion data were obtained from the portal images of 10 patients to investigate the effect of organ motions on the dosimetric influence of markers in the presence of a rectal balloon. The underdosed volume due to a single gold marker, in which the dose was less than 95% of a prescribed amount, was 0.15 cc. The underdosed volume due to the presence of a gold marker is much smaller than the target volume. However, the underdosed volume is inside the gross tumor volume and is not smeared out due to translational prostate motions. The positions of gold markers and the conditions of the proton-beam field give different impacts on the dose distribution of a target with implanted gold markers, and should be considered in all clinical proton-based therapies.