Evaluation of Treatment Response Using Diffusion-Weighted MAI in Metastatic Spines (척추 전이암에서 확산강조 자기공명 영상을 이용한 치료반응의 평가)
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- Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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- v.18 no.1
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- pp.30-38
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- 2001
Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging for monitoring the response to radiation therapy in metastatic bone marrow of the spines. Materials and Methods: Twenty-one patients with metastatic bone marrow of the spines were examined with MRI. Diffusion-weighted and spin-echo MRI were performed in 10 patients before and after radiation therapy with or without systemic chemotherapy, and performed in 11 patients after radiation therapy alone. Follow up spin-echo and diffusion-weighted MRI were obtained at 1 to 6 months after radiation therapy according to patients' condition. The diffusion-weighted imaging sequence was based on reversed fast imaging with steady-state precession (PSIF). Signal intensity changes of the metastatic bone marrows before and after radiation therapy on conventional spin-echo sequence MRI and diffusion-weighted MRI were evaluated. Bone marrow contrast ratios and signal-to-noise ratios before and after radiation therapy of diffusion- weighted MRI were analyzed. Results: All metastatic bone marrow of the spinal bodies were hyperintense to normal bone marrow of the spinal bodies on pretreatment diffusion-weighted MRI and positive bone marrow contrast ratios(p<0.001), and hypointense to normal spinal bodies on posttreatment diffusion-weighted MRI and negative bone marrow contrast ratios(p<0.001). The signal to noise ratios after treatment decreased comparing with those of pretreatment. Decreased signal intensity of the metastatic bone marrows on diffusion-weighted MRI began to be observed at average more than one month after the initiation of the radiation therapy. Conclusion: These results suggest that diffusion-weighted MRI would be an excellent method for monitoring the response to therapy of metastatic bone marrow of the spinal bodies, however, must be investigated in a larger series of patients with longer follow up period.
Purpose : To determine the diagnostic accuracy of four different sequences : moderately T2 weighted, two heavily T2-weighted single shot turbo spin-echo sequence and breath-hold axial-2D balanced turbo field-echo sequence(bFFE) for characterization of focal lesions. Materials and Methods : During the 3-month period between June and August 2005, seventy-six patients were proved to have ninety-three focal hepatic lesions on MR imaging. The patients consisted of 49 men and 27 women (age range, 15-75 years; mean age, 56.23 years). All MR images were acquired on a 1.5-T MR using the following sequences: 1. A breath-hold axial T2-weighted single shot turbo spin-echo sequence, 2. a breath-hold axial-2D balanced turbo field-echo sequence. Two radiologists performed quantitative analysis. Another radiologist measured the lesion-to-liver contrast-to-noise ratio at the region-of-interest in the four sequences. Results : There was no significant difference in inter-observer variability between the four sequences. The accuracy for both cyst and malignancy of moderate T2 weighted MRI (echo time: 80 msec) was also highest. There was significant difference for lesion characterization between moderate T2 weighted MRI and balanced steady state procession (p-value: 0.004) in the second reader. For longer echo time, the CNR of cystic lesions were markedly increased in comparison to lesions of other component. Conclusion : The accuracy and inter-observer variability of single shot turbo spin echo T2 weighted sequence was higher than bFFE. Although there was no statically significant difference, moderate T2 weighted MRI (echo time: 80 msec) was more accurate than heavily T2 weighted sequence (echo time: 300 msec). If the results for lesion characterization is equivocal in TE 80, the addition of heavily T2 weighted MRI (echo time: 180 msec) can be helpful.
This paper deals with the performance anlysis of CCA adaptive equalization algorithm, that is used for reduction of intersymbol interference at the receiving side which occurs in the time dispersive communication channel. Basically, this algorithm is borned for the solving phase unrecovery problem in the CMA equalizer, and the comines the concept of DDA (Decision Directed Algorithm) and RCA (Reduce Constellation Algorithm). The DDA has a stable convergence characteristics in unilevel signal, but not in the number of levels in multilevel signal such as QAM, so it has unstable problem. The RCA does not provide reliable initial convergence. And even after convergence, the equalization noise due to the steady state misadjustment exhibited by it is very high as compared to DDA. For the solving the abovemensioned point, the CCA adaptive eualization alogorithm has borned. In order to performance analysis of CCA algorithm, the recovered signal constellation that is the output of the equalizer, the convergence characteristic by the residual isi and MD (maximum distortion), the SER characteristic are used by computer simulation and it was compared with the DDA, RCA respectively. As a result of simulation, the DDA has superior performance than other algoithm, but it has a convergence unguarantee and unstability in the multilevel signal. In order to solving this problem, the CCA has more good performance than RCA in every performance index.
모든 SAR 영상에는 전자기파 간의 간섭으로 인한 스페클 잡영(speckle)이 존재하며, 이를 제거하는 것은 양질의 SAR 영상을 얻기 위한 필수적인 전처리 과정 중 하나라고 할 수 있다. 그러나 이러한 스페클 잡영을 제거하기 위하여 기존에 제안되었던 알고리즘은 잡영은 효과적으로 감소시키는 반면 경계선과 같은 영상의 고유 정보까지 함께 감소시키는 한계가 있었다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 SAR 영상의 경계선은 보존시키면서 영상으로부터 불필요한 잡영을 제거할 수 있는 알고리즘을 구현하고, 기존의 알고리즘과 비교하여 그 효율성을 평가하고자 한다. 영상의 통계적 특성에 근거하는 기존의 알고리즘과는 달리 웨이블렛 변환(Wavelet transform)으로 경계선 및 특징 정보의 여부를 판별한 후 평균 필터(mean filter)를 적용하는 경계선 보존(edge sharpening) 알고리즘은 경계 정보의 신뢰성을 향상시킬 수 있으며, 1차원 필터를 수평, 수직, 대각선, 역대각선 방향으로 적용함으로써 하나의 영상소를 중심으로 모든 방향에 대한 경계선 여부를 확인할 수 있는 장점이 있다. 본 연구에서는 512 × 512로 절취한 1-look SAR 영상에 대하여 창 크기 5 × 5의 경계선 보존 필터를 적용하고 동일영상에 대하여 기존의 Lee, Kuan, Frost 필터 등의 실험결과를 비교함으로써 그 적합성을 판단하고자 하였다. 실험결과에 대한 수치적인 평가는 ①정규화 평균을 이용하여 평균값의 보존 여부, ②편차 계수를 이용한 스페클 잡영의 제거 여부, ③경계선 보존지수(EPI)를 이용한 경계선의 보존 정도를 통해 이루어졌다. 본 연구의 실험결과를 통해 경계선 보존 필터는 평균값의 보존 여부 및 스페클 잡영 제거 정도에 있어 다른 필터들과 큰 차이가 없지만 경계선보존지수는 다른 필터들에 비하여 가장 우수함을 확인할 수 있었다.rbon 탐식효율을 조사한 결과 B, D 및 E 분획에서 유의적인 효과를 나타내었다. 이상의 결과를 종합해볼 때,
For the self-adaptive equalization of higher-order QAM systems, this paper proposes a new soft decision-directed (SDD) algorithm that opens the eye patterns quickly as well as significantly reducing the error level in the steady-state when it is applied to the initial equalization stage with completely closed eye patterns. The proposed method for M-QAM application minimized the computational complexity of the existing SDD by the symbol estimated based on the two symbols closest to the observation, and greatly simplified the soft decision independently of the QAM order. Furthermore, in the symbol estimating it increased the reliability of the estimates by applying the superior properties of the sigmoid function and avoiding the erroneous estimation of the threshold function. In addition, the initialization performance was improved when an error is generated to update the equalizer, weighting the symbol decision by the threshold function to the error, resulting in an extension of the range of error fluctuations. As a result, the proposed method improves remarkably the computational complexity and the properties of initialization and convergence of the traditional SDD. Through simulations for 64-QAM and 256-QAM under multipath channel conditions with additive noise, the usefulness of the proposed methods was confirmed by comparing the performance of the proposed 2-SDD and two forms of weighted 2-SDD with CMA.
This paper proposes the SU-SE-MMA algorithm which applying the concept of selective updaing to the SE-MMA that is possible to reduce the intersymbol interference due to distortion occurred at the channel when transmit the nonconstant modulus 16-QAM signal. The SE-MMA emerged for the simplifying the computational operation from the current MMA adaptation algorithm, then it's has the fast convergence speed and has a problem of increase the residual component in the steady state. The SU-SE-MMA performs the selectively tap updating when the distance of equalizer output and specified transmit signal point is greater than the given threshold value and tap updaing does not occurred in the small distance. By this selective updating process, it is possible to more reduction in the computational operation in the propose algorithm. The improved adaptive equalization performance of SU-SE-MMA like as the equalizer output signal constellation, residual isi, MD, SER were confirmed by computer simulation compared to SE-MMA. As a result of simulation, the AV-SE-MMA has better performance in output signal constellation, residual isi and MD compared to the SE-MMA, but it was confirmed that the AV-SE-MMA has similar in the SER performance that means the robustness to the noise.
This paper compare the adaptive equalization performance according to the values of adaptive step variation speed for adapting in VS-CCA (Variable Stepsize-Compact Constellation Algorithm) based on nonlinear function function of error signal. The VS-CCA algorithm compacts the 16-QAM nonconstant modulus signal into the 4 groups of 4-QAM constant modulus signal constellation in quadature plane, then the error signal is generated using the constant modulus of transmitted signal statistics. The adaptive equalizer coefficient were updated in order to achieve the minimum cost function by varying step based on the nonlinear function of error signal. In this time, the instantaneous adaptive step is determined according to the value of step variation speed of nonlinear function and the different equalization performance were obtained according to the step variation speed value. The equalizer internal index and external index which represents the robustness of external noise were used for the performance comparison index. As a result of computer simulation, it was confirmed that the value of variation speed less than 1.0 give more superior in every performance index compared to the greater than 1.0 in steady state.
Objective: To clinically validate the feasibility and accuracy of cine images acquired through the multitasking method, with no electrocardiogram gating and free-breathing, in measuring left ventricular (LV) function indices by comparing them with those acquired through the balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) method, with multiple breath-holds and electrocardiogram gating. Materials and Methods: Forty-three healthy volunteers (female:male, 30:13; mean age, 23.1 ± 2.3 years) and 36 patients requiring an assessment of LV function for various clinical indications (female:male, 22:14; 57.8 ± 11.3 years) were enrolled in this prospective study. Each participant underwent cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using the multiple breath-hold bSSFP method and free-breathing multitasking method. LV function parameters were measured for both MRI methods. Image quality was assessed through subjective image quality scores (1 to 5) and calculation of the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) between the myocardium and blood pool. Differences between the two MRI methods were analyzed using the Bland-Altman plot, paired t-test, or Wilcoxon signed-rank test, as appropriate. Results: LV ejection fraction (LVEF) was not significantly different between the two MRI methods (P = 0.222 in healthy volunteers and P = 0.343 in patients). LV end-diastolic mass was slightly overestimated with multitasking in both healthy volunteers (multitasking vs. bSSFP, 60.5 ± 10.7 g vs. 58.0 ± 10.4 g, respectively; P < 0.001) and patients (69.4 ± 18.1 g vs. 66.8 ± 18.0 g, respectively; P = 0.003). Acceptable and comparable image quality was achieved for both MRI methods (multitasking vs. bSSFP, 4.5 ± 0.7 vs. 4.6 ± 0.6, respectively; P = 0.203). The CNR between the myocardium and blood pool showed no significant differences between the two MRI methods (18.89 ± 6.65 vs. 18.19 ± 5.83, respectively; P = 0.480). Conclusion: Multitasking-derived cine images obtained without electrocardiogram gating and breath-holding achieved similar image quality and accurate quantification of LVEF in healthy volunteers and patients.
The wall shear stress in the vicinity of end-to end anastomoses under steady flow conditions was measured using a flush-mounted hot-film anemometer(FMHFA) probe. The experimental measurements were in good agreement with numerical results except in flow with low Reynolds numbers. The wall shear stress increased proximal to the anastomosis in flow from the Penrose tubing (simulating an artery) to the PTFE: graft. In flow from the PTFE graft to the Penrose tubing, low wall shear stress was observed distal to the anastomosis. Abnormal distributions of wall shear stress in the vicinity of the anastomosis, resulting from the compliance mismatch between the graft and the host artery, might be an important factor of ANFH formation and the graft failure. The present study suggests a correlation between regions of the low wall shear stress and the development of anastomotic neointimal fibrous hyperplasia(ANPH) in end-to-end anastomoses. 30523 T00401030523 ^x Air pressure decay(APD) rate and ultrafiltration rate(UFR) tests were performed on new and saline rinsed dialyzers as well as those roused in patients several times. C-DAK 4000 (Cordis Dow) and CF IS-11 (Baxter Travenol) reused dialyzers obtained from the dialysis clinic were used in the present study. The new dialyzers exhibited a relatively flat APD, whereas saline rinsed and reused dialyzers showed considerable amount of decay. C-DAH dialyzers had a larger APD(11.70
The wall shear stress in the vicinity of end-to end anastomoses under steady flow conditions was measured using a flush-mounted hot-film anemometer(FMHFA) probe. The experimental measurements were in good agreement with numerical results except in flow with low Reynolds numbers. The wall shear stress increased proximal to the anastomosis in flow from the Penrose tubing (simulating an artery) to the PTFE: graft. In flow from the PTFE graft to the Penrose tubing, low wall shear stress was observed distal to the anastomosis. Abnormal distributions of wall shear stress in the vicinity of the anastomosis, resulting from the compliance mismatch between the graft and the host artery, might be an important factor of ANFH formation and the graft failure. The present study suggests a correlation between regions of the low wall shear stress and the development of anastomotic neointimal fibrous hyperplasia(ANPH) in end-to-end anastomoses. 30523 T00401030523 ^x Air pressure decay(APD) rate and ultrafiltration rate(UFR) tests were performed on new and saline rinsed dialyzers as well as those roused in patients several times. C-DAK 4000 (Cordis Dow) and CF IS-11 (Baxter Travenol) reused dialyzers obtained from the dialysis clinic were used in the present study. The new dialyzers exhibited a relatively flat APD, whereas saline rinsed and reused dialyzers showed considerable amount of decay. C-DAH dialyzers had a larger APD(11.70