• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• 제29권3E호
• /
• pp.107-110
• /
• 2010

In this paper, the rationale and contents of the special issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea regarding comprehensive reviews on past, present and future of biomedical ultrasound are described. Brief descriptions of invited articles are given, and efforts by all contributing authors are gratefully acknowledged.

• 비파괴검사학회지
• /
• 제20권6호
• /
• pp.521-537
• /
• 2000

초음파 영상은 의료진단을 위한 영상기기 중 가장 널리 쓰이고 있는 방법으로 전자공학에 있어서 DSP 및 VLSI 분야의 기술발전에 힘입어 보다 효율적이고 복잡한 기법들의 적용이 가능하여져 90년대에 이르러 시스템의 성능이 매우 빠르게 발달되었다. 본 논문은 의료진단용 초음파 영상장치에서 사용되는 주요 디지털 신호처리 기법과 시스템 구현 기술에 대하여 기술하였다. 구체적으로는 일반적인 초음파 영상장치의 구조 및 신호처리 기법을 소개하고, 90년대에 개발된 디지털 초음파 영상장치의 기술적인 내용을 그 기술 동향과 전망과 함께 다루었다. 특히 초음파 영상의 화질을 결정하는 가장 중요한 요소인 해상도를 증대하기 위한 모든 초음파 집속 기법을 표현할 수 있는 통합 합성 구경 모형을 제시하고, 이론적인 해석을 통하여 초음파 영상을 위한 어레이 신호처리 기법들을 구분하고 각 방법들에 대한 특성을 조사하였나. 본 논문에서 소개된 신호처리 기법들은 초음파를 이용한 비파괴 검사 분야에 유용하게 적용될 수 있는 것 들이다.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• 제15권8호
• /
• pp.3555-3559
• /
• 2014

Background: The triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive cancer characterized by the absence of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). Preoperative mammography and ultrasound features of TNBC may potentially suggest characteristics of the disease and assist in treatment decisions. Materials and Methods: The study covered 153 patients with TNBC from May 2011 to May 2012 who were confirmed by postoperative pathology results in our hospital. We compared the radiological findings among the patients and sought to determine the significant iconographic features. The biomarkers p53 and Ki-67 are regarded as significant factors in TNBC. They were therefore used to divide the TNBC into four groups for assessment of relationships with TNBC imaging features. Results: On mammography, most TNBCs exhibit obscure (44.3%) masses. On ultrasound, the majority of masses (95.4%) were predominantly indistinct (50.7%), irregular (76.0%) or featuring posterior echo enhancement/shadowing. Color Doppler flow imaging (CDFI) emphasized hypervascular (32.9%) masses. Differences in CDFI by ultrasound among the four groups were statistically significant (p=0.009). There were obvious differences in the percentages of spiculated margin (p=0.049) and intensive posterior echo (p=0.006) with spotty flow imaging by ultrasound between the Ki-67 (+) p53 (+) and other groups. Conclusions: A combination of mammography and ultrasound revealed the imaging characteristics of TNBC included an obscure mass with less attenuated posterior echoes and some vascularity. A worse prognosis was associated with spiculated margin and intensive posterior echoes with spotty flow imaging.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• 제15권24호
• /
• pp.10739-10743
• /
• 2015

The present study aimed at evaluating and comparing the diagnostic performance of B-mode ultrasound (US), elastography score (ES), and strain ratio (SR) for the differentiation of breast lesions. This retrospective study enrolled 431 lesions from 417 in-hospital patients. All patients were examined with both conventional ultrasound and elastography. Two experienced radiologists reviewed ultrasound and elasticity images. The histopathologic result obtained from ultrasound-guided core biopsy or operation excisions were used as the reference standard. Pathologic examination revealed 276 malignant lesions (64%) and 155 benign lesions (36%). A cut-off point of 4.15 (area under the curve, 0.891) allowed significant differentiation of malignant and benign lesions. ROC (receiver-operating characteristic) curves showed a higher value for combination of B-mode ultrasound and elastography for the diagnosis of breast lesions. Conventional ultrasound combined elastography showed high sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for group II lesions (10mm${\leq}20mm$). Elastography combined with conventional ultrasound show high specificity and accuracy for differentiation of benign and malignant breast lesions. Elastography is particularly important for the diagnosis of BI-RADS 4 and small breast lesions.

• 대한한의진단학회지
• /
• 제20권1호
• /
• pp.37-44
• /
• 2016

Ultrasonic imaging is the most widely modality among modern imaging device for medical diagnosis. Nevertheless, medical ultrasound images suffer from speckle noise and low contrast. In this paper, we propose probabilistic edge map for ultrasound image edge enhancement using automatic alien algorithm. The proposed method used applied speckle reduced ultrasound imaging for edge improvement using sequentially acquired ultrasound imaging. To evaluate the performance of method, the similarity between the reference and edge enhanced image was measured by quantity analysis. The experimental results show that the proposed method considerably improves the image quality with region edge enhancement.

• 한국융합학회논문지
• /
• 제3권4호
• /
• pp.15-21
• /
• 2012

초음파 영상 진단 장치에서 획득한 데이터로부터 진단 객체를 추출하기 위한 영상 분할은 질병의 효과적인 진단을 위하여 필수적인 전처리 과정으로 인식되고 있으며, 지금까지 많은 분할 기법들이 연구되고 있다. 본 연구에서는 혈관 초음파 영상의 다양한 응용 및 진단법 개발을 위하여 기초 전처리과정으로서 graph cut 알고리즘에 의한 상호적인 영상분할법을 제시한다. 일반영상 및 혈관 초음파 영상에 대하여 전경(foreground)과 배경(background)의 제약조건을 주고 영상분할 처리하여, 원하는 object에 대한 분할 결과를 얻었다. 향후, 이러한 일련의 처리 과정이 실시간으로 처리되면 새로운 초음파 진단법으로 발전시켜 나갈 수 있을 것으로 사료된다.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
• /
• 제30권3호
• /
• pp.233-240
• /
• 2009

Using a spatial compound imaging technique in a medical ultrasound imaging system, the average speed of sound in a medium of interest is measured, and imaging of its distribution is implemented. When the brightness reaches the highest level in an ultrasonic image obtained as the speed of sound used in focusing is varied, it turns out that the focusing has been accomplished satisfactorily and that the speed of sound which has been adopted becomes the sought-after average speed of sound. Because spatial compound imaging provides many different views of the same object, the adverse effect of erroneous speed-of-sound estimation tends to be more severe in compound imaging than in plain B-mode imaging. Thus, in compound imaging, the average speed of sound even in the case of speckled images can be accurately estimated by observing the brightness change due to different speeds of sound employed. Using this new method that offers spatial diversity, we can construct an image of the speed of sound distribution in a phantom embedded with a 10-mm diameter plastic cylinder whose speed of sound is different from that of the background. The speed of sound in the cylinder is found to be different from that of the surrounding medium.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
• /
• 제27권1호
• /
• pp.22-29
• /
• 2006

This paper proposes an efficient array beamforming method using spatial matched filtering for ultrasound imaging. In the proposed method, ultrasound waves are transmitted from an array subaperture with fixed transmit focus as in conventional array imaging. At receive, radio frequency (RF) echo signals from each receive channel are passed through a spatial matched filter that is constructed based on the system transmit-receive spatial impulse response. The filtered echo signals are then summed. The filter remaps and spatially registers the acoustic energy from each element so that the pulse-echo impulse response of the summed output is focused with acceptably low side lobes. Analytical beam pattern analysis and simulation results using a linear array show that the proposed spatial filtering method can provide more improved spatial resolution and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) compared with conventional dynamic receive focusing (DRF) method by implementing two-way dynamically focused beam pattern throughout the field.

• 비파괴검사학회지
• /
• 제28권2호
• /
• pp.101-111
• /
• 2008

의료용 초음파 영상 시스템에서 스트레인 영상 기법은 병변 주위의 조직보다 단단한 성질을 가지는 암이나 종양을 영상화할 수 있다. 준정적인 압축(quasistatic compression) 방법을 이용하여 스트레인 영상을 얻는 방법은, 조직에 변형을 가하기 전의 초음파 신호를 기준으로 하여 변형을 가한 후에 얻어진 초음파 신호 사이의 변위를 계산하고, 이를 공간 미분하여 스트레인을 구한다. 본 논문에서 변위의 계산은 복소 기저대역 신호의 자기상관(autocorrelation)을 계산하여 위상차로부터 구하고, 위상차를 시간 혹은 거리로 변환할 때 발생하는 오차를 중심주파수 편차를 보상하여 줄였다. 조작자의 손 움직임의 영향을 줄이기 위해 모든 스캔라인의 변위를 정규화시키는 알고리즘을 적용하여 균일한 스트레인 영상을 얻었다. 제안한 스트레인 영상 기법을 초음파 영상 진단기에서 실시간 동작하도록 구현하였다.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• 제29권3E호
• /
• pp.111-118
• /
• 2010

Three-dimensional ultrasound imaging is a new, exciting technology that allows physicians to use ultrasound to view pathology as a volume, thereby enhancing comprehension of patient anatomy. In this paper, a brief history of the 3-D ultrasound imaging is described in accordance with the development of transducer technology. Then, two representative types of 3-D imaging transducers are reviewed with description of the concept and operation principle of each type: mechanical transducer and matrix array transducer. The mechanical transducer is detailed into free-hand scanning and sequential scanning types. Advantages of each transducer over the other and the technical issues for further performance enhancement are also presented.