• Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging
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• 제31권3호
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• pp.145-149
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• 2023

BACKGROUND: ¹⁸F-sodium fluoride positron emission tomography/computed tomography (¹⁸F-NaF PET/CT) has been proven to be useful in identification of microcalcifications, which are stimulated by inflammation. Blood speckle imaging (BSI) is a new imaging technology used for tracking the flow of blood cells using transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). We evaluated the relationship between turbulent flow identified by BSI and inflammatory activity of the aortic valve (AV) as indicated by the ¹⁸F-NaF uptake index in moderate aortic stenosis (AS) patients. METHODS: This study enrolled 18 moderate AS patients diagnosed within the past 6 months. BSI within the aortic root was acquired using long-axis view TEE. The duration of laminar flow and the turbulent flow area ratio were calculated by BSI to demonstrate the degree of turbulence. The maximum and mean standardized uptake values (SUVmax, SUVmean) and the total microcalcification burden (TMB) as measured by ¹⁸F-NaF PET/CT were used to demonstrate the degree of inflammatory activity in the AV region. RESULTS: The mean SUVmean, SUVmax, and TMB were 1.90 ± 0.79, 2.60 ± 0.98, and 4.20 ± 2.18 mL, respectively. The mean laminar flow period and the turbulent area ratio were 116.1 ± 61.5 msec and 0.48 ± 0.32. The correlation between SUVmax and turbulent flow area ratio showed the most positive and statistically significant correlation, with a Pearson's correlation coefficient (R²) of 0.658 and a p-value of 0.014. CONCLUSIONS: The high degree of trans-aortic turbulence measured by BSI was correlated with severe AV inflammation.

• Toxicological Research
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• 제29권1호
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• pp.1-6
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• 2013

The process of drug discovery and development requires substantial resources and time. The drug industry has tried to reduce costs by conducting appropriate animal studies together with molecular biological and genetic analyses. Basic science research has been limited to in vitro studies of cellular processes and ex vivo tissue examination using suitable animal models of disease. However, in the past two decades new technologies have been developed that permit the imaging of live animals using radiotracer emission, X-rays, magnetic resonance signals, fluorescence, and bioluminescence. The main objective of this review is to provide an overview of small animal molecular imaging, with a focus on nuclear imaging (single photon emission computed tomography and positron emission tomography). These technologies permit visualization of toxicodynamics as well as toxicity to specific organs by directly monitoring drug accumulation and assessing physiological and/or molecular alterations. Nuclear imaging technology has great potential for improving the efficiency of the drug development process.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• 제52권7호
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• pp.804-810
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• 2009

목 적 : 영아연축은 이차성 전신간질중의 하나로 간질 병소를 발견하기 힘든 질환중의 하나이다. 이에 저자들은 $^{99m}Tc-ECD$ 추적자의 느린 점적 주사를 이용한 발작기 SPECT를 통하여 영아 연축 환아에서 간질 병소를 찾아보고자 하였다. 방 법 : 2005년 3월부터 2007년 2월까지 연세대학교 의과대학 소아과에 내원한 영아 연축 14명의 환아를 대상으로 첫 연축이 발생하는 시점에 $^{99m}Tc-ECD$ 를 2분에 걸쳐 천천히 같은 속도로 주입하였다. 발작간기와 발작기 간의 SPECT 의 차이를 비교하였으며 객관적인 비교를 위하여 SISCOM기법을 사용하였다. 또한 간질 병소를 발견할 수 있는 진단기법인 뇌파, 자기공명영상, 양전자단층촬영(PET) 등과 비교 분석하였다. 결 과 : 전체 14례의 추적자의 느린 점적 주사를 이용한 발작기 SPECT 중 10례에서 간질 병소의 혈류가 증가하였다. 비디오 뇌파와 발작기 SPECT에서 간질병소의 일치율은 Kappa=0.57, 95% confidence interval: 0.18-0.96로 높게 나왔다. 이 중 6례에서 발작기 SPECT와 비디오 뇌파에 근거하여 간질 수술을 시행하였으며 수술적 예후가 Engle class I으로 좋은 결과를 보였다. 결 론 : 추적자의 느린 점적 주사를 이용한 발작기 SPECT는 간질 병소를 찾기 어려운 영아 연축 환아에서 간질 병소를 찾아내는데 중요한 역할을 하는 것을 알 수 있었다. 그러나 보다 큰 규모의 전향적인 연구가 필요할 것으로 사료된다.

• 생물정신의학
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.152-158
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• 2002

Background & Purpose:Neuropsychological disorders after traumatic brain injury(TBI) are poorly correlated with structural lesions detected by structural neuroimaging techniques such as computed tomography(CT) scan or magnetic resonance imaging(MRI). It is well known that patients with TBI have cognitive and behavioral disorders even in the absence of structural lesions of the brain. This study investigated whether there are abnormalities of regional cerebral blood flow(rCBF) in TBI patients without structural abnormality on MRI, using technetium 99m ethyl cysteinate dimer(Tc-99m-ECD) single photon emission computed tomography(SPECT) scans. Materials and Methods:Twenty-eight TBI patients without structural abnormality on MRI(mild, n=13/moderate, n=9/severe, n=6) and fifteen normal controls were scanned by SPECT. A voxel-based analysis using statistical parametric mapping(SPM) was performed to compare the patients with the normal controls. Results:rCBF was reduced in the right uncus and the right lateral orbitofrontal gyrus in the TBI patients. However, no increase of rCBF was noted in the patients in comparison to the normal controls. Conclusions:These results suggest that the TBI patients, even in the absence of structural lesion of the brain, may have dysfunction of the brain, particularly of the orbitofrontal and anterior pole of the temporal cortex. They also suggest that SPECT can be a useful method to identify brain dysfunctions in combination with structural brain imaging and neuropsychological tests.

• 대한방사선기술학회지:방사선기술과학
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• 제40권1호
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• pp.79-85
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• 2017

본 연구는 양전자 컴퓨터단층촬영(Positron Emission Computed Tomography; PET-CT) 유방암 영상에서 질환관심영역(Region of Interest; ROI)의 대조도 대 잡음비(Contrast to Noise Ratio; CNR)와 신호 대 잡음비(Signal to Noise Ratio; SNR)를 재구성 기법별로 측정 평가하여 통계적 분석을 하고자 하였다. 연구대상은 서울소재 대학병원에서 유방 양전자 컴퓨터단층촬영(Breast PET-CT)을 검사한 환자 100명이다. 측정방법은 ImageJ 프로그램을 사용하여 표본의 인구사회학적 특성, 영상 재구성 기법별 유방암의 SNR과 CNR의 평균값, 95% 신뢰구간 값, SNR과 CNR의 평균차이 값 등을 분석하였다. SPSS Statistics21 통계프로그램으로 ANOVA 분석을 하였으며 p<0.05에서 유의한 것으로 판단하였다. 영상 재구성 기법별 분석결과는 CNR과 SNR 모두 TrueX_TOF, Iterative, Iterative-TOF, FBP-TOF 순으로 높은 값을 나타냈다(p<0.05). CNR과 SNR수치로 영상 재구성 기법의 특징을 조합하여 PET/CT 검사의 정확성과 편의성을 제공할 것이라 사료된다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권4호
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• pp.776-780
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• 2017

To avoid imaging artifacts and interpretation mistakes, an improvement of the uniformity in gamma camera systems is a very important point. We can expect excellent uniformity using cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) photon counting detector (PCD) because of the direct conversion of the gamma rays energy into electrons. In addition, the uniformity performance such as integral uniformity (IU), differential uniformity (DU), scatter fraction (SF), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) varies according to the energy window setting. In this study, we compared a PCD and conventional scintillation detector with respect to the energy windows (5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%) using a $^{99m}Tc$ gamma source with a Geant4 Application for Tomography Emission simulation tool. The gamma camera systems used in this work are a CZT PCD and NaI(Tl) conventional scintillation detector with a 1-mm thickness. According to the results, although the IU and DU results were improved with the energy window, the SF and CNR results deteriorated with the energy window. In particular, the uniformity for the PCD was higher than that of the conventional scintillation detector in all cases. In conclusion, our results demonstrated that the uniformity of the CZT PCD was higher than that of the conventional scintillation detector.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제35권8호
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• pp.2367-2370
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• 2014

"Cat's eye"-shaped $[^{57}Co]CoO@SiO_2$ core-shell nanostructure was prepared by the reverse microemulsion method combined with radioisotope technique to investigate a potential imaging agent for a single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) in nuclear medicine. The core cobalt oxide nanorods were obtained by thermal decomposition of $Co-(oleate)_2$ precursor from radio isotope Co-57 containing cobalt chloride and sodium oleate. The $SiO_2$ coating on the surface of the core cobalt oxide nanorods was produced by hydrolysis and a condensation reaction of tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) in the water phase of the reverse microemulsion system. In vivo test, micro SPECT image was acquired with nude mice after 30 min of intravenous injection of $[^{57}Co]CoO@SiO_2$ core-shell nanostructure.

• 대한핵의학회지
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• 제17권1호
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• pp.55-62
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• 1983

In 16 volunteers without clinical or laboratory evidence of liver disease, liver volume was determined using single-photon emission computed tomography(ECT). This technique provided excellent object contrast between the liver and its surroundings and permitted calculation of liver volume without geometric assumptions about the liver's configuration. Reproducibility of results was satisfactory, with a root-me an-square error of less than 2% between duplicate measurements in 16 individuals. The volume measurements were validated by the use of phantoms.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권10호
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• pp.3943-3948
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• 2022

Single-photon emission computed tomography is one of the reliable pin-by-pin verification techniques for spent-fuel assemblies. One of the challenges with this technique is to increase the total fuel assembly verification speed while maintaining high verification accuracy. The aim of the present study, therefore, was to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm-based tomographic image analysis technique for partial-defect verification of fuel assemblies. With the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation technique, a tomographic image dataset consisting of 511 fuel-rod patterns of a 3 × 3 fuel assembly was generated, and with these images, the VGG16, GoogLeNet, and ResNet models were trained. According to an evaluation of these models for different training dataset sizes, the ResNet model showed 100% pattern estimation accuracy. And, based on the different tomographic image qualities, all of the models showed almost 100% pattern estimation accuracy, even for low-quality images with unrecognizable fuel patterns. This study verified that an AI model can be effectively employed for accurate and fast partial-defect verification of fuel assemblies.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권5호
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• pp.1527-1532
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• 2023

The noise reduction algorithm using the non-local means (NLM) approach is very efficient in nuclear medicine imaging. In this study, the applicability of the NLM noise reduction algorithm in single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) images with a brain phantom and the optimization of the NLM algorithm by changing the smoothing factors according to various reconstruction methods are investigated. Brain phantom images were reconstructed using filtered back projection (FBP) and ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM). The smoothing factor of the NLM noise reduction algorithm determined the optimal coefficient of variation (COV) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) results at a value of 0.020 in the FBP and OSEM reconstruction methods. We confirmed that the FBP- and OSEM-based SPECT images using the algorithm applied with the optimal smoothing factor improved the COV and CNR by 66.94% and 8.00% on average, respectively, compared to those of the original image. In conclusion, an optimized smoothing factor was derived from the NLM approach-based algorithm in brain SPECT images and may be applicable to various nuclear medicine imaging techniques in the future.