• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.323-330
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• 1991

Residual significant tricuspid regurgitation after mitral valve operation may significantly increase postoperative morbidity and mortality. However, routine techniques to detect tricuspid regurgitation preoperatively and postoperatively are not accurate. Doppler echocardiography was performed preoperatively and postoperatively to assess its ability to evaluate and quantify the severity of tricuspid regurgitation. In 34 patients with tricuspid regurgitation secondary to mitral valvular disease the tricuspid regurgitations were semiquantified on a scale of 1 to 3+. The 34 patients were divided into two groups on the basis of severity of tricuspid regurgitation as assessed by preoperative Doppler echocardiography. Group I [8 patients] had mild[1+] regurgitation, and group II [26 patients] had moderate to severe[2 ~ 3%] tricuspid regurgitation. In all studied patients, preoperative Doppler echocardiographic studies for the degree of tricuspid regurgitation were correlated with clinical symptoms[including NYHA class] and hemodynamics[JVP and right ventricular systolic pressure], and used as the indicator to determine whether tricuspid annuloplasty should be performed or not. Patients with significant tricuspid regurgitation[group II ] had greater preoperative right ventricular systolic pressures and NYHA classes, although there was no correlation between them. The 8 patients with mild[1+] tricuspid regurgitation[group I ] didn`t undergo any procedure for the tricuspid regurgitation and their postoperative Doppler echocardiographic studies showed the less than mild[0 ~ 1+] tricuspid regurgitation, and the 26 patients with significant[>2+] tricuspid regurgitation, and the 26 patients with significant[>2+] tricuspid regurgitation[group II ] underwent tricuspid annuloplasty for the tricuspid regurgitation and the postoperative Doppler echocardiographic studies showed the findings similar to group I except 1 patient who underwent Carpentier`s ring annuloplasty and had severe right ventricular failure. Therefore, preoperative Doppler echocardiography can accurately assess the relative severity of tricuspid regurgitation. Importantly, postoperative Doppler echocardiography could conveniently determine the effect of tricuspid annuloplasty for the patients with significant tricuspid regurgitation. Doppler echocardiography may be an important diagnostic method both for evaluating the degree of residual tricuspid regurgitation after left heart operation as well as for determining which patients should undergo tricuspid valve repair.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.270-275
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• 2019

The incidence of degenerative valve disease also increasing with the increasing life expectancy of the elderly population. Rheumatic valve disease is decreasing gradually and the incidence of calcified degenerative aortic stenosis (AS) is growing. Echocardiography is a very important tool for evaluating the prognosis and treatment method as well as the time of operation and diagnosis of heart valve disease. When evaluating valvular heart disease, 2-dimensional echocardiography, which observes all heart valves in detail, should take precedence. Understanding the clinical findings of degenerative valve disease and performing precise echocardiography are extremely important. In addition, an assessment of the severity of aortic stenosis is necessary to determine the surgical indications. An assessment of the severity by echocardiography was explained with three cases of degenerative aortic stenosis. To perform echocardiography accurately, it is necessary to understand degenerative valve disease and its clinical findings accurately.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.150-154
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• 2010

Purpose: Ejection fraction (EF) is one of the most important factors that evaluate heart function. Recently, according to echocardiography and myocardial perfusion SPECT, the number of gated blood pool scan (planar GBP) is declining. Measurement of left ventricular ejection fraction using gated blood pool SPECT (GBPS) is known as relatively correspond with echocardiography. We compared EF derived from plnar GBP, GBPS and echocadiography using modified simpson method to determine the accuracy. Materials and Methods: From January 2007 to June 2010, planar GBP and GBPS were performed on 34 patients who admitted to Pusan National University Hospital (men 23, women 11, mean age $52.6{\pm}27.2$). Each patient was injected with $^{99m}{TcO_4}^-$ of 20 mCi after pyrophosphate injection and then scanned using both planar GBP and GBPS techniques. For image analysis, we use ADAC Laboratories, Ver. 4.20 software. The result analyzed was processed by SPSS 17.0 Win statistic program and statistical method applied in data analysis is one-way anova, Tukey's post hoc test, pearson correlation test. Results: One-way anova test show no significant difference (planar GBP $56.3{\pm}13.9%$; GBPS $60.4{\pm}16.0%$; echocardiography $59.1{\pm}14.4%$, p=0.486, p>0.05). Tukey's post hoc test show no significant difference (planar GBP-echocardiography p=0.697; GBPS-echocardiography p=0.928; planar GBP-GBPS p=0.469, p>0.05). Values for EF obtained with planar GBP and GBPS correlated well with those obtained with echocardiography (planar-echocardiography r=0.697; GBPS-echocardiography r=0.928; planar GBP-GBPS r=0.469). Conclusion: The problems of accuracy and reproducibility for planar GBP still remain. But planar GBP is a safe and non-invasive method. In addition, planar GBP is useful to evaluate patient with low resolution echocardiography images. GBPS is not appicated clinically. but GBPS can be obtain various left ventricular functional parameters. planar GBP, GBPS and echocardiography show a good correlation between each other. Therefore, planar GBP and GBPS are useful for evaluating left ventricular ejection fraction.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.269-275
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• 2023

Echocardiography is a non-invasive method that is useful for diagnosing pulmonary arterial hypertension. It is known that echocardiography depends on the experience, education, and knowledge level of the cardiac sonographer. This study aimed to compare the agreement values between cardiac sonographer with different practical experiences in the diagnosis of pulmonary arterial hypertension using echocardiography. Three readers re-evaluated the echocardiography images of 148 patients who were diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension at the S Medical Center from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020. The echocardiography values measured by each reader were compared and analyzed. The results of the analysis of discrete variables revealed that the agreement values of the cardiac sonographers showed excellent consistency for both reader 3 and the cardiologist group, indicating that more experience leads to better predictive accuracy for diagnosis of the condition. Furthermore, in terms of continuous variables, all the cardiac sonographer demonstrated good agreement in the measured values of the right atrium, which was easier to assess and clearer than the structurally complex measurements of the right ventricle. This study represents the first analysis in Korea of the agreement values measured by medical technologists who are cardiac sonographers.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.181-192
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• 2014

In this paper, we propose a robust real-time myocardial border tracking algorithm for echocardiography. Commonly, after an initial contour of LV border is traced at one or two frame from the entire cardiac cycle, LV contour tracking is performed over the remaining frames. Among a variety of tracking techniques, optical flow method is the most widely used for motion estimation of moving objects. However, when echocardiography data is heavily corrupted in some local regions, the errors bring the tracking point out of the endocardial border, resulting in distorted LV contours. This shape distortion often occurs in practice since the data acquisition is affected by ultrasound artifacts, dropout or shadowing phenomena of cardiac walls. The proposed method deals with this shape distortion problem and reflects the motion realistic LV shape by applying global deformation modeled as affine transform partitively to the contour. We partition the tracking points on the contour into a few groups and determine each affine transform governing the motion of the partitioned contour points. To compute the coefficients of each affine transform, we use the least squares method with equality constraints that are given by the relationship between the coefficients and a few contour points showing good tracking results. Many real experiments show that the proposed method supports better performance than existing methods.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.30 no.12
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• pp.1205-1213
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• 1997

This study reviewed useful aspects of the intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography among the patients in whom heart surgery were undertaken between January 1996 and July 1996 at St.Pauls hospital, Medical College of Catholic University, Seoul, Korea. During that period, 61 patients were operated on because of valvular heart disease(25 patients), coronary artery disease(22 patients), congenital heart disease(13 patients), and combined coronary artery disease and valvular heart disease(1 patient). Two patients(1 redo-VSD and 1 valvular heart diease) needed repeated aortic cross clamping and complementary procedures because of incomplete initial procedures. There was no incidence of air embolism. We could observe significant relationship of cardiac output monitoring methods either by thermodilution technique and transesophageal echocardiography by linear regression analysis(p<0.001). We tested myocardial response(percentage of systolic wall thickness, PSWT) with low dose dobutamine challenge to predict post-CABG myocardial perfusion. And the test showed statistically significant resp.onse(sensitivity 76%, specificity 94.7%, positive predictive value 95%, negative predictive value 75%). These results suggest that cardiac surgeon could draw more benefits by intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography.

• Journal of Biomedical and Translational Research
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.79-85
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• 2018

Echocardiography is one of the most useful diagnostic techniques for differentiating heart disease as well as mitral valve lesion. Forty client-owned small breed dogs (weight, 2.3-13.2 kg) aged between 8-17 years with myxomatous mitral valve degeneration (MMVD) were included in the present study. The diagnosis of MMVD in dogs was made based on the clinical signs, chest radiography data, and echocardiographic findings. Echocardiographic examinations were conducted in accordance with recommended standards for dogs. M-mode, Doppler, and 2D echocardiography were performed in left and right lateral recumbency. 2D echocardiography was used to measure LA and Ao diameter from 2D short axis at the level of the aortic valve. In the comparison of conventional echocardiography indices in dogs with different stages of heart failure with MMVD, significant differences were observed in E/A ratio (p=0.005), EDV (p<0.001), EDVI (p<0.001), E-peak velocity (p= 0.001), ESV (p=0.028), ESVI (p=0.004), LA (p<0.001), LA/Ao Ratio (p<0.001), LVIDd (p<0.001), LVIDd/Ao Ratio (p<0.001), LVIDs (p=0.036), LVIDs/Ao Ratio (p=0.002), and MR Velocity (p=0.026). In addition, distinct correlations were found in EDV (r=0.712), LA/Ao ration (r=0.830), LVIDd (r=0.724), and LVIDd/Ao ratio (r=0.759). This study found that known conventional echocardiographic indices, including EDV, LA/Ao ratio, LVIDd dimension, and LVIDd/Ao ratio correlated with the severity of MMVD in point of significant differences and distinct correlations.

• Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.180-187
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• 2023

BACKGROUND: Two-dimensional (2D) transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is commonly used for assessing patients undergoing transcatheter atrial septal defect (ASD) device closure. 3D TEE, albeit providing high resolution en-face images of ASD, is used in only a fraction of cases. We aimed to perform a comparative analysis between 3D and 2D TEE assessment for ASD device planning. METHODS: This was a prospective, observational study conducted over a period of one year. Patients deemed suitable for device closure underwent 2D and 3D TEE at baseline. Defect characteristics, assessed separately in both modalities, were compared. Using regression analysis, we aimed to derive an equation for predicting device size using 3D TEE parameters. RESULTS: Thirty patients were included in the study, majority being females (83%). The mean age of the study population was 40.5 ± 12.05 years. Chest pain, dyspnea and palpitations were the common presenting complaints. All patients had suitable rims on 2D TEE. A good agreement was noted between 2D and 3D TEE for measured ASD diameters. 3D TEE showed that majority of defects were circular in shape (60%). The final device size used had high degree of correlation with 3D defect area and circumference. An equation was devised to predict device size using 3D defect area and circumference. The mean device size obtained from the equation was similar to the actual device size used in the study population (p = 0.31). CONCLUSIONS: Device sizing based on 3D TEE parameters alone is equally effective for transcatheter ASD closure as compared to 2D TEE.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.49-56
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• 2012

Purpose : Gated myocardial perfusion SPECT provides not only myocardial perfusion status, but various functional parameters of left ventricle (LV). The purpose of this study was to analyze ejection fraction (EF) for correlation and difference between $^{201}Tl$ gated myocardial perfusion SPECT and echocardiography depending on extent of perfusion defect, gender and LV volumes. Materials and Methods : From April 2011 to May 2012, we analyzed 291 patients (male:female =165:126; mean: $64.6{\pm}10.8$ years) who were examined both $^{201}Tl$ gated myocardial perfusion SPECT and echocardiography at less than 7 days apart in our hospital. 101 patients showed perfusion defect and the rest of the people without any defect. We applied automatic analysis (Quantitative gated SPECT, QGS), and calculated EF, End-diastolic volume (EDV) and End-systolic volume (ESV) from Stress (G-Stress) and Rest (G-Rest) studies. And we analyzed the correlation and difference for EF between $^{201}Tl$ gated SPECT and echocardiography. Results : The correlation of LVEF among G-Stress, G-Rest and echocardiography was quite a good (G-Stress vs. G-Rest: r=0.909, G-Stress vs. echocardiography: r=0.833, G-Rest vs. echocardiography: r=0.825). And there were significant differences in EDV, ESV and EF in total patients (p<0.01). The normal group showed significant difference in EF (p<0.01) and the group with perfusion defect also demonstrated significant difference (a group with reversible defect: p<0.01, fixed defect: p<0.01) depending on extent of perfusion defect. We analyzed difference in normal group by gender. In normal group, there was no significant difference (p>0.05) in EF from men. However, there was a significant difference (p<0.01) from women. When we classified two groups by average size of EDV in Korean women, there was no significant difference in a group of above average size of EDV (p>0.05). Conclusion : When compared among Stress and Rest of $^{201}Tl$ gated SPECT and echocardiography, we confirmed that there was a good correlation for LVEF. But there were significant differences among three studies. And extent of perfusion defect, gender and LV volumes are independent determinants of the accuracy of LVEF. So, it is hard to compare and interchange quantitative indices among modalities. We should take additional researches to prove results of our study.

• Journal of Yeungnam Medical Science
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.133-138
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• 2010

Apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is rare disease and a variant of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with prevalence of 1 in 500 in the general population. Apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with apical aneurysm and intramural thrombus is extremely rare. We report a case of apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy progressing to left ventricular apical aneurysm with intramural thrombus diagnosed by contrast echocardiography.