• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.426-445
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• 2022

Endometriosis, a common chronic inflammatory disease in female of reproductive age, is closely related to patient symptoms and fertility. Because of its high contrast resolution and objectivity, MRI can contribute to the early and accurate diagnosis of ovarian endometriotic cysts and deeply infiltrating endometriosis without the need for any invasive procedure or radiation exposure. The ovaries, which are the most frequent site of endometriosis, can be afflicted by multiple related conditions and diseases. For the diagnosis of deeply infiltrating endometriosis and secondary adhesions among pelvic organs, fibrosis around the ectopic endometrial gland is usually found as a T2 hypointense lesion. This review summarizes the MRI findings obtained for ovarian endometriotic cysts and their physiologically and pathologically related conditions. This article also includes the key imaging findings of deeply infiltrating endometriosis.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.263-264
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• 2007

Splenic metastasis from colon carcinoma are rare and usually occur in the presence of disseminated visceral metastasis. The liver is the most common site of metastatic spread from colon cancer. Several hypotheses have attempted to explain the low incidence of splenic metastasis. It should be difficult for colorectal cancer cells to reach the spleen through the portal venous system, in which the blood flow is usually from the spleen to the liver. Reticuloendothelial system or rhythmic contraction of the spleen may squeeze out the tumor in the spleen. The absence of afferent lymphatic to the spleen, phagocytic activity and humoral anticancer substances are considered to be other reason for low incidence of splenic metastasis. We report the case of $^{18}F-FDG$ PET/CT finding in a 70-year-old woman who develop isolated splenic metastasis of sigmoid colon cancer.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.171-174
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• 2004

Angiogenesis, the formation of new capillaries from existing vessels, increases oxygenation and nutrient supply to ischemic tissue and allows tumor growth and metastasis. As such, angiogenesis targeting provides a novel approach for cancer treatment with easier drug delivery and less drug resistance. Therapeutic anti-angiogenesis has shown impressive effects in animal tumor models and are now entering clinical trials. However, the successful clinical introduction of this new therapeutic approach requires diagnostic tools that can reliably measure angiogenesis in a noninvasive and repetitive manner. Molecular imaging is emerging as an exciting new discipline that deals with imaging of disease on a cellular or genetic level. Angiogenesis imaging is an important area for molecular imaging research, and the use of radiotracers offers a particularly promising technique for its development. While current perfusion and metabolism radiotracers can provide useful information related to tissue vascularity, recent endeavors are focused on the development of novel radioprobes that specifically and directly target angiogenic vessels. Presently available proges include RGD sequence containing peptides that target ${\alpha}_v\;{\beta}_3$ integrin, endothelial growth factors such as VEGF or FGF, metalloptoteinase inhibitors, and specific antiangiogenic drugs. It is now clear that nuclear medicine techniques have a remarkable potential for angiogenesis imaging, and efforts are currently continuing to develop new radioprobes with superior imaging properties. With future identification of novel targets, design of better probes, and improvements in instrumentation, radiotracer angiogenesis imaging promises to play an increasingly important role in the diagnostic evaluation and treatment of cancer and other angiogenesis related diseases.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.128-134
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• 2015

Recently, the structured data format in RDF/OWL has played an increasingly vital role in the semantic web. We converted pediatric and oncologic nuclear medicine imaging reports in free text into RDF/OWL format and evaluated the usefulness of nuclear medicine imaging reports in RDF/OWL by comparing SPARQL query results with the manually retrieved results by physicians from the reports in free text. SPARQL query showed 95% recall for simple queries and 91% recall for dedicated queries. In total, SPARQL query retrieved 93% (51 lesions of 55) recall and 100% precision for 20 clinical query items. All query results missed by SPARQL query were of some inference. Nuclear medicine imaging reports in the format of RDF/OWL were very useful for retrieving simple and dedicated query results using SPARQL query. Further study using more number of cases and knowledge for inference is warranted.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.229-239
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• 2009

Molecular imaging strives to visualize processes in living subjects at the molecular level. Monitoring biochemical processes at this level will allow us to directly track biological processes and signaling events that lead to pathophysiological abnormalities, and help make personalized medicine a reality by allowing evaluation of therapeutic efficacies on an individual basis. Although most molecular imaging techniques emerged from the field of oncology, they have now gradually gained acceptance by the cardiovascular community. Hence, the availability of dedicated high-resolution small animal imaging systems and specific targeting imaging probes is now enhancing our understanding of cardiovascular diseases and expediting the development of newer therapies. Examples include imaging approaches to evaluate and track the progress of recent genetic and cellular therapies for treatment of myocardial ischemia. Other areas include in vivo monitoring of such key molecular processes as angiogenesis and apoptosis, Cardiovascular molecular imaging is already an important research tool in preclinical experiments. The challenge that lies ahead is to implement these techniques into the clinics so that they may help fulfill the promise of molecular therapies and personalized medicine, as well as to resolve disappointments and controversies surrounding the field.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.175-179
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• 2004

Molecular nuclear cardiac imaging has included Tc-99m Annexin imaging to visualize myocardial apoptosis, but is now usually associated with gene therapy and cell-based therapy. Cardiac gene therapy was not successful so far but cardiac reporter gene imaging was made possible using HSV-TK (herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase) and F-18 FHBG (fluoro-hydroxymethylbutyl guanine) or I-124 FIAU (fluoro-deoxyiodo-arabino-furanosyluracil). Gene delivery was performed by needic injection with or without catheter guidance. Tk expression did not last longer than 2 weeks in myocardium. Cell-based therapy of ischemic heart or failing heart looks promising, but biodistribution and differentiation of transplanted cells are not known. Reporter genes can be transfected to the stem/progenitor cells and cells containing these genes can be transplanted to the recipients using catheter-based purging or injection. Repeated imaging should be available and if promoter are varied to let express reporter transgenes, cellular (trans)differentiation can be studied. NIS (sodium iodide symporter) or D2R receptor genes are promising in this aspect.

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.152-157
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• 2007

Imaging of the dopamine transporter (DAT) provides a marker for the integrity of presynaptic nigrostriatal dopaminergic system. DAT density is reduced in Parkinson disease, multiple system atrophy, and progressive supranuclear palsy. In patients with suspicious parkinsonism, normal DAT imaging suggests an alternative diagnosis such as essential tremor, vascular parkinsonism, or drug-induced parkinsonism. DAT imaging is a useful tool to aid clinician's differential diagnosis in parkinsonism.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.399-404
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• 2006

Noninvasive molecular targeting in living subjects is highly demanded for better understanding of such diverse topics as the efficient delivery of drugs, genes, or radionuclides for the diagnosis or treatment of diseases. Progress in molecular biology, genetic engineering and polymer chemistry provides various tools to target molecules and cells in vivo. We used chitosan as a polymer, and $^{99m}Tc$ as a radionuclide. We developed $^{99m}Tc-galactosylated$ chitosan to target asialoglycoprotein receptors for nuclear imaging. We also developed $^{99m}Tc-HYNIC-chitosan-transferrin$ to target inflammatory cells, which was more effective than $^{67}Ga-citrate$ for imaging inflammatory lesions. For an effective delivery of molecules, a longer circulation time is needed. We found that around 10% PEGylation was most effective to prolong the circulation time of liposomes for nuclear imaging of $^{99m}Tc-HMPAO-labeled$ liposomes in rats. Using various characteristics of molecules, we can deliver drugs into targets more effectively. We found that $^{99m}Tc-labeled$ biodegradable pullulan-derivatives are retained in tumor tissue in response to extracellular ion-strength. For the trafficking of various cells or bacteria in an intact animal, we used optical imaging techniques or radiolabeled cells. We monitored tumor-targeting bacteria by bioluminescent imaging techniques, dentritic cells by radiolabeling and neuronal stem cells by sodium-iodide symporter reporter gene imaging. In summary, we introduced recent achievements of molecular nuclear imaging technologies in targeting receptors for hepatocyte or inflammatory cells and in trafficking bacterial, immune and stem cells using molecular nuclear imaging techniques.

• 대한핵의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.27-27
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• 2006

• Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.98-111
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• 2008

This review introduces advances in clinical and pre-clinical single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET) providing noninvasive functional images of biological processes. Development of new collimation techniques such as multi-pinhole and slit-slat collimators permits the improvement of system spatial resolution and sensitivity of SPECT. Application specific SPECT systems using smaller and compact solid-state detector have been customized for myocardial perfusion imaging with higher performance. Combined SPECT/CT providing improved diagnostic and functional capabilities has been introduced. Advances in PET and CT instrumentation have been incorporated in the PET/CT design that provide the metabolic information from PET superimposed on the anatomic information from CT. Improvements in the sensitivity of PET have achieved by the fully 3D acquisition with no septa and the extension of axial field-of-view. With the development of faster scintillation crystals and electronics, time-of-flight (TOF) PET is now commercially available allowing the increase in the signal-to-noise ratio by incorporation of TOF information into the PET reconstruction process. Hybrid PET/SPECT/CT systems has become commercially available for molecular imaging in small animal models. The pre-clinical systems have improved spatial resolution using depth-of-interaction measurement and new collimators. The recent works on solid state detector and dual modality nuclear medicine instrumentations incorporating MRI and optical imagers will also be discussed.