• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.418-422
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• 2011

Background: It has recently become most general to use the small bore catheter to perform closed thoracostomy in treating iatrogenic pneumothorax. This study was performed for analysis of the efficacy of treatment methods by using small bore catheter such as 7 F (French) central venous catheter, 10 F trocar catheter, 12 F pigtail catheter and for analysis of the appropriateness of each procedure. Materials and Methods: From March 2007 to February 2010, Retrospective review of 105 patients with iatrogenic pneumothorax, who underwent closed thoracostomy by using small bore catheter, was performed. We analyzed the total success rate for all procedures as well as the individual success rate for each procedure, and analyzed the cause of failure, additional treatment method for failure, influential factors of treatment outcome, and complications. Results: The most common causes of iatrogenic pneumothorax were presented as percutaneous needle aspiration(PCNA) in 48 cases (45.7%), and central venous catheterization in 26 cases (24.8%). The mean interval to thoracostomy after the procedure was measured as 5.2 hours (1~34 hours). Total success rate of thoracostomy was 78.1%. The success rate was not significantly difference by tube type, with 7 F central venous catheter as 80%, 10 F trocar catheter as 81.6%, and 12 F pigtail catheter as 71%. Twenty one out of 23 patients that had failed with small bore catheter treatment added large bore conventional thoracostomy, and another 2 patients received surgery. The causes for treatment failure were presented as continuous air leakage in 12 cases (52.2%) and tube malfunction in 7 cases (30%). The causes for failure did not present significant differences by tube type. Statistically significant factors affecting treatment performance were not discovered. Conclusion: Closed thoracostomy with small bore catheter proved to be effective for iatrogenic pneumothorax. The success rate was not difference for each type. However, it is important to select the appropriate catheter by considering the patient status, pneumothorax aspect, and medical personnel in the cardiothoracic surgery department of the relevant hospital.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.49-52
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• 2020

Background: Primary spontaneous pneumothorax is commonly treated with chest tube insertion, which requires hospitalization. In this study, we evaluated the efficacy, costs, and benefits of a portable small-bore chest tube (Thoracic Egg; Sumitomo Bakelite Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) compared with a conventional chest tube. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed all primary spontaneous pneumothorax patients who underwent treatment at Gangnam Severance Hospital between August 2014 and May 2018. Results: A total of 279 patients were divided into 2 groups: the conventional group (n=236) and the Thoracic Egg group (n=43). Of the 236 patients in the conventional group, 100 were excluded because they underwent surgery during the study period. The efficacy and cost were compared between the 2 groups. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups regarding recurrence (conventional group, 36 patients [26.5%]; Thoracic Egg group, 15 patients [29.4%]; p=0.287). However, the Egg group had statistically significantly lower mean medical expenses than the conventional group (433,413 Korean won and 522,146 Korean won, respectively; p<0.001). Conclusion: Although portable small-bore chest tubes may not be significantly more efficacious than conventional chest tubes, their use is significantly less expensive. We believe that the Thoracic Egg catheter could be a less costly alternative to conventional chest tube insertion.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.81 no.2
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• pp.106-115
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• 2018

Chest tube insertion is a common procedure usually done for the purpose of draining accumulated air or fluid in the pleural cavity. Small-bore chest tubes (${\leq}14F$) are generally recommended as the first-line therapy for spontaneous pneumothorax in non-ventilated patients and pleural effusions in general, with the possible exception of hemothoraces and malignant effusions (for which an immediate pleurodesis is planned). Large-bore chest drains may be useful for very large air leaks, as well as post-ineffective trial with small-bore drains. Chest tube insertion should be guided by imaging, either bedside ultrasonography or, less commonly, computed tomography. The so-called trocar technique must be avoided. Instead, blunt dissection (for tubes >24F) or the Seldinger technique should be used. All chest tubes are connected to a drainage system device: flutter valve, underwater seal, electronic systems or, for indwelling pleural catheters (IPC), vacuum bottles. The classic, three-bottle drainage system requires either (external) wall suction or gravity ("water seal") drainage (the former not being routinely recommended unless the latter is not effective). The optimal timing for tube removal is still a matter of controversy; however, the use of digital drainage systems facilitates informed and prudent decision-making in that area. A drain-clamping test before tube withdrawal is generally not advocated. Pain, drain blockage and accidental dislodgment are common complications of small-bore drains; the most dreaded complications include organ injury, hemothorax, infections, and re-expansion pulmonary edema. IPC represent a first-line palliative therapy of malignant pleural effusions in many centers. The optimal frequency of drainage, for IPC, has not been formally agreed upon or otherwise officially established.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.135-135
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• 2015

Tubes are of extreme importance in industries as for fluid channels or wave guides. Furthermore, some weapon systems such as cannons use the tubes as gun barrels. To increase the service life of such tubes, a protective coating must be applied to the tubes' inner surface. However, the coating methods applicable to the inner surface of the tubes are very limited due to the geometrical restriction. A small-diameter cylindrical magnetron sputtering gun can be used to deposit coating layers on the inner surface of the large-bore tubes. However, for small-bore tubes with the inner diameter of one inch (~25 mm), the magnetron sputtering method can hardly be accommodated due to the space limitation for permanent magnet assembly. In this study, a new approach to coat the inner surface of small-bore tubes with the inside diameter of one inch was developed. Instead of using permanent magnets for magnetron operation, an external electro-magnet assembly was adopted around the tube to confine the plasma and to sustain the discharge. The electro-magnet was operated in pulse mode to provide the strong axial magnetic field for the magnetron operation, which was synchronized with the negative high-voltage pulse applied to the water-cooled coaxial sputtering target installed inside the tube. By moving the electro-magnet assembly along the tube's axial direction, the inner surface of the tube could be uniformly coated. The inner-surface coating system in this study used the tube itself as the vacuum chamber. The SS-304 tube's inner diameter was 22 mm and the length was ~1 m. A water-cooled Cu tube (sputtering target) of the outer diameter of 12 mm was installed inside of the SS tube (substrate) at the axial position. The 50 mm-long electro-magnet assembly was fed by a current pulse of 250 A at the frequency and pulse width of 100 Hz and 100 usec, respectively. The calculated axial magnetic field strength at the center was ~0.6 Tesla. The central Cu tube was synchronously driven by a HiPIMS power supply at the same frequency of 100 Hz as the electro-magnet and the applied pulse voltage was -1200 V with a pulse width of 500 usec. At 150 mTorr of Ar pressure, the Cu deposition rate of ~10 nm/min could be obtained. In this talk, a new method to sputter coat the inner surface of small-bore tubes would be presented and discussed, which might have broad industrial and military application areas.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.63-68
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• 2015

The fin and tube type heat exchangers widely used in air conditioners have been developed to improve on the heat transfer performance and compactness. This study presents the new type of tube for the heat exchanger to improve the heat transfer performance by increasing the heat transfer area per unit volume in the air-conditioner heat exchanger. The new type tube can be used for mechanical expansion facility, due to the two-port copper tube. Numerical calculation shows that the heat exchanger using the two-port copper tube outperforms the conventional heat-exchanger using a circular copper tube, in terms of the increased heat transfer coefficient and higher pressure drop. The calculation results were experimentally validated and are in agreement with the experimental results. Compared to the heat exchanger using a conventional circular tube, the heat exchanger with a two-port tube increased the heat transfer coefficient up to 21%, and the pressure dropped up to 16%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.1024-1025
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• 2004

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.185-189
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• 2016

Background: For treatment of pneumothorax in Korea, many institutions hospitalize the patient after chest tube insertion. In this study, a portable small-bore chest tube (Thoracic Egg; Sumitomo Bakelite Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) was used for pneumothorax management in an outpatient clinic. Methods: Between August 2014 and March 2015, 56 pneumothorax patients were treated using the Thoracic Egg. Results: After Thoracic Egg insertion, 44 patients (78.6%) were discharged from the emergency room for follow-up in the outpatient clinic, and 12 patients (21.4%) were hospitalized. The mean duration of Thoracic Egg chest tube placement was 4.8 days, and the success rate was 73%; 20% of patients showed incomplete expansion and underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. For primary spontaneous pneumothorax patients, the success rate of the Thoracic Egg was 76.6% and for iatrogenic pneumothorax, it was 100%. There were 2 complications using the Thoracic Egg. Conclusion: Outpatient treatment of pneumothorax using the Thoracic Egg could be a good treatment option for primary spontaneous and iatrogenic pneumothorax.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.13-17
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• 2023

Magnetic separation technology for small paramagnetic particles has been desired for the volume reduction of contaminated soil from the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident and for the separation of scale and crud from nuclear power plants. However, the magnetic separation for paramagnetic particles requires a superconducting high gradient magnetic separation system applied, hence expanding the bore diameter of the magnets is necessary for mass processing and the initial and running costs would be enormous. The use of high magnetic fields makes safe onsite operation difficult, and there is an industrial need to increase the magnetic separation efficiency for paramagnetic particles in as low a magnetic field as possible. Therefore, we have been developing a magnetic separation system combined with a selection tube, which can separate small paramagnetic particles in a low magnetic field. In the previous technique we developed, a certain range of particle size was classified, and the classified particles were captured by magnetic separation. In this new approach, the fluid control method has been improved in order to the selectively classify particles of various diameters by using a multi-stage selection tube. The soil classification using a multi-stage selection tube was studied by calculation and experiment, and good results were obtained. In this paper, we report the effectiveness of the multi-stage selection tube was examined.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.401-408
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• 2012

Volumetric mass transfer coefficient was measured with carbon dioxide and deionized water for the gas-liquid cocurrent slug flow in 2, 5 and 8 mm tubes. Measurement was repeated with and without a vertical section in an experimental setup and entrance effect was found greater for smaller tubes. Volumetric mass transfer coefficient in the vertical section was found generally a strong function of gas- and liquid-phase superficial velocities. 5 mm- and 8 mm-tube data are highly consistent each other but not with 2 mm tube.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.43-47
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• 2005

We have developed a small bore x-ray CT for small animal imaging with a linear x-ray detector array and small-scale slip rings. The linear x-ray detector array consists of 1024 elements of 400□m×400□m with a gadolinium oxysulfide (GOS) scintillator on top of them. To avoid use of expensive large diameter slip rings for projection data transmission from the X­ray detector to the image reconstruction system, we used the wireless LAN technology. The projection data are temporally stored in the data acquisition system residing on the rotating gantry during the scan and they are transmitted to the image reconstruction system after the scan. With the wireless LAN technology, we only needed to use small-scale slip rings to deliver the AC electric power to the X-ray generator and the power supply on the rotating gantry. The performances of the small animal CT system, such as SNR, contrast, and spatial resolution, have been evaluated through experiments using various phantoms. It has been experimentally found that the SNR is almost linearly proportional to the tube current and tube voltage, and the minimum resolvable contrast is less than 30 CT numbers at 40kVp/3.0㎃. The spatial resolution of the small animal CT system has been found to be about 0.9Ip/㎜. Postmortem images of a piglet is also presented.