• The Korean Journal of Pain
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.403-412
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• 2022

Background: Most pain management techniques for challenging procedures are still performed under the guidance of the C-arm fluoroscope although it is sometimes difficult for even experienced clinicians to understand the modified three-dimensional anatomy as a two-dimensional X-ray image. To overcome these difficulties, the development of a virtual simulator may be helpful. Therefore, in this study, the authors developed a virtual simulator and presented its clinical application cases. Methods: We developed a computer program to simulate the actual environment of the procedure. Computed tomography (CT) Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) data were used for the simulations. Virtual needle placement was simulated at the most appropriate position for a successful block. Using a virtual C-arm, the authors searched for the position of the C-arm at which the needle was visualized as a point. The positional relationships between the anatomy of the patient and the needle were identified. Results: For the simulations, the CT DICOM data of patients who visited the outpatient clinic was used. When the patients revisited the clinic, images similar to the simulated images were obtained by manipulating the C-arm. Transforaminal epidural injection, which was difficult to perform due to severe spinal deformity, and the challenging procedures of the superior hypogastric plexus block and Gasserian ganglion block, were successfully performed with the help of the simulation. Conclusions: We created a pre-procedural virtual simulation and demonstrated its successful application in patients who are expected to undergo challenging procedures.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.85-92
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• 2023

Deep learning applications are increasingly being leveraged for disease detection tasks in medical imaging modalities such as X-ray, Computed Tomography (CT), and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Most data-centric deep learning challenges necessitate the use of supervised learning methodologies to attain high accuracy and to facilitate performance evaluation through comparison with the ground truth. Supervised learning mandates a substantial amount of image and label sets, however, procuring an adequate volume of medical imaging data for training is a formidable task. Various data augmentation strategies can mitigate the underfitting issue inherent in supervised learning-based models that are trained on limited medical image and label sets. This research investigates the enhancement of a deep learning-based rib fracture segmentation model and the efficacy of data augmentation techniques such as left-right flipping, rotation, and scaling. Augmented dataset with L/R flipping and rotations(30°, 60°) increased model performance, however, dataset with rotation(90°) and ⨯0.5 rescaling decreased model performance. This indicates the usage of appropriate data augmentation methods depending on datasets and tasks.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.35-44
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• 2012

The goal of this study is to awaken about risk occurred by CT examination. For radio-technologists working at 'S medical center' located in Seoul, we investigated a recognition about dose and risk CT and normal X-ray examination according by working experience in hospital, experience about CT examination and radiation source. For subjects of investigation, radio-technologists working at 'S medical center' located in Seoul helped us. We collected 131 questionnaires for a test of hypothesis. Cronbach @ coefficients of questionnaires were 0.825988 and 0.767161 and a rejection rate of p-value was below 0.05. SAS 9.1(SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA.) statistic package was used for hypothesis test. We used Mann-Whitney test, Kruskai-Wallis test, Two sample T-test, Two sample T-test with Bonferroni's Correction and One-way ANOVA methods. P-values of hypothesis about dose of CT and normal X-ray examination were 0.2291 ~ 0.9663. p-values of hypothesis about risk were 0.1924 ~ 1.0000. All of hypothesis is over rejection rate(<0.05). This study shows that radio-technologists of S medical center recognized that CT has higher dose and risk than general X-ray examination.

• Journal of Acupuncture Research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.265-276
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• 2000

Objectives : The purpose of this study is to observe the clinical characteristics of 6 patients who were not improved after admitted conservative treatment in this 311 patients. Methods : We retrospectivety reviewed 311 patients of Herniated Lumbar Intervertebral Disc which undenvent admitted conservative treatment from November 1997 to June 2000. 311 patients were diagnosed by computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging in addition to physical examination. Other complications were not detected in 311 patients with Hemiated Lumbar Intervertebral Disc. In case that the scoliosis appeared to caused by severe pain, we included this scoliosis patient with the object of survey. Results : 1. In 6 patients who were not improved, 4 patients were large herniation and 2 patients were medium herniation. 2. In all of 6 patients, the angle of straight leg raising test was low and was not imporved unril discharge. 3. X-ray findings showed straightening in all of 6 patients, disc space narrowing in 3 of 6 patients. 4. X-ray findings showed scoliosis in 3 of 4 patients who were severe pain. 5. The onset was relarively long from 30 days to 7 years. 6. The age was relatively young from 10's to 30's. 7. The adimission date was ralatively long from 32 days to 105 days. Conclusions : In 6 patients, there were observed much volume of disc herniation, low angle of straight leg raising test, young people in an age group, straightening of x-ray finding.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.52 no.11
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• pp.105-114
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• 2015

This paper proposes methods to remove background area and segment region of interest (ROI) in chest X-ray images. Conventional algorithms to improve detail or contrast of images normally utilize brightness and frequency information. If we apply such algorithms to the entire images, we cannot obtain reliable visual quality due to unnecessary information such as background area. So, we propose two effective algorithms to remove background and segment ROI from the input X-ray images. First, the background removal algorithm analyzes the histogram distribution of the input X-ray image. Next, the initial background is estimated by a proper thresholding on histogram domain, and it is removed. Finally, the body contour or background area is refined by using a popular guided filter. On the other hand, the ROI, i.e., lung segmentation algorithm first determines an initial bounding box using the lung's inherent location information. Next, the main intensity value of the lung is computed by vertical cumulative sum within the initial bounding box. Then, probable outliers are removed by using a specific labeling and the pre-determined background information. Finally, a bounding box including lung is obtained. Simulation results show that the proposed background removal and ROI segmentation algorithms outperform the previous works.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.191-196
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• 2011

The economic scale of nuclear application is a good indicator to show how the radiation technology is useful and contribute to improve public welfare and living standard. Recent research in Japan shows that the economic scale of nuclear field was 4,112 B¥ for radiation application(46%) and 4,741 B¥ for nuclear energy (54%) playing a role of "two wheels of one cart" in nuclear field and the total 8,853 B¥ constitutes 1.8% of gross domestic products (GDP). The radiation application consisted of 2,295 B¥ (56%) in industry (semiconductor, sterilization, nondestructive testing, radiation processing of tires, etc.), 1,538 B¥ (37%) in medicine (therapy and diagnosis such as X-ray, nuclear medicine, computed tomography, etc.) and 279 B¥ (7%) in agriculture (mutation breeding, food irradiation, sterile insect technique, etc.). Radiation application by ${\gamma}$-ray, electron beam and ion beam is steadily increasing in Japan.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.41-48
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• 2016

This study presents the correlations between quantified particle shape parameters and internal friction angles for nine sand specimens including six natural sands and three crushed sands. Specimens are subjected to 3D X-ray computed tomographic imaging and their particles are segmented through the aid of image processing techniques. Shapes of segmented particles are then quantified through two shape parameters such as sphericity and elongation. The direct shear apparatus enables us to measure peak and critical state friction angles of sand specimens of distinct relative densities. The gathered data show that decreasing sphericity and increasing elongation cause increases in peak and critical state friction angle with similar gradients.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.113-116
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• 1996

A previously healthy 59-year old male patient was admitted due to cough and abnormal chest x-ray. Cough started 5 months ago and persisted. Two months before admission, abnormality in chest PA was detected. He had no symptom other than cough. He was nonsmoker and physical examination revealed no abnormal finding. His chest X-ray showed ill-defined $2{\times}1\;cm$ ovoid infiltration in left middle lung field. On chest computed tomography, it was located in the subpleural region of posterobasal segment of left lower lobe. Mediastinal lymphadenopathy was absent. Blood test and sputum examination were not diagnostic. Fluoroscopy-guided percutaneous needle biopsy revealed pulmonary cryptococcosis. After central nervous system involvement was excluded by spinal tap, oral ketoconazole therapy was started. The lesion decreased in size after 8 weeks of therapy and almost disappeared on follow-up chest X-ray 4 months later.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.58 no.3
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• pp.108-111
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• 2015

DiGeorge syndrome is an immunodeficient disease associated with abnormal development of 3rd and 4th pharyngeal pouches. As a hemizygous deletion of chromosome 22q11.2 occurs, various clinical phenotypes are shown with a broad spectrum. Conotruncal cardiac anomalies, hypoplastic thymus, and hypocalcemia are the classic triad of DiGeorge syndrome. As this syndrome is characterized by hypoplastic or aplastic thymus, there are missing thymic shadow on their plain chest x-ray. Immunodeficient patients are traditionally known to be at an increased risk for malignancy, especially lymphoma. We experienced a 7-year-old DiGeorge syndrome patient with mediastinal mass shadow on her plain chest x-ray. She visited Severance Children's Hospital hospital with recurrent pneumonia, and throughout her repeated chest x-ray, there was a mass like shadow on anterior mediastinal area. We did full evaluation including chest computed tomography, chest ultrasonography, and chest magnetic resonance imaging. To rule out malignancy, video assisted thoracoscopic surgery was done. Final diagnosis of the mass which was thought to be malignancy, was lymphoproliferative lesion.

• Korean Journal of Digital Imaging in Medicine
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.15-22
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to measure the absorbed dose and calculate the effective dose for cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) and panorama units and to estimate usefulness of x-ray protective. Rando phantom and glass dosimeters were used for dosimetry. The absorbed doses were measured at 15 organs and 14 remainder from correspond to ICRP 2007 recommendations. The absorbed dose was highest in salivary glands as measured CBCT 2.420mGy, panorama 0.307mGy. Absorbed dose in another organs were high in order of thyroid, brain, skin, esophagus. The effective dose was CBCT 0.100mSv, panorama 0.011mSv and effective dose of panorama was higher than that of CBCT by 10 times. In case of wearing x-ray protective, reducing effective dose of CBCT by 0.066mSv (66%) and panorama by 0.008mSv (72%). Effective dose were reduced by radiological shielding but it needs further optimization studies, where dosimetric data are analyzed in combination with image quality with keep the patients' exposure as low as possible.