• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.1157-1164
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• 2023

This study measures the additional dose for each treatment area using kV X-ray based OBI (On-Board Imager) and CBCT (Cone-Beam CT), which have excellent spatial resolution and contrast, and evaluates the adequacy and stability of radiation management aspects of IGRT. The subjects of the experiment were examined with OBI and CBCT attached to a linear accelerator (Clinac IX), and ring-shaped Halcyon CBCT under imaging conditions for each treatment area, and the dose at the center was measured using an ion chamber. OBI single fraction dose was measured as 0.77 mGy in the head area, 3.04 mGy in the chest area, and 7.19 mGy in the pelvic area. The absorbed doses from the two devices, Clinac IX CBCT and Halcyon CBCT, were measured to be similar in the pelvic area, at 70.04 mGy and 70.45 mGy. and in chest CBCT, the Clinac IX absorbed dose (70.05 mGy) was higher than the Halcyon absorbed dose (21.01 mGy). The absorbed dose to the head area was also higher than that of Clinac IX (9.08 mGy) and Halcyon (5.44 mGy). In kV X-ray-based IGRT, additional radiation exposure due to photoelectric absorption may affect the overall volume of the treatment area, and caution is required.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.1025-1031
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• 2023

We aimed to evaluate the radiation dose and image quality by changing the Scout view voltage in low-dose chest CT (LDCT) and applying scan parameters such as AEC (auto exposure control) and ASIR (adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction) to find the optimal protocol. Scout view voltage was varied at 80, 100, 120, 140 kV and after measuring the dose 5 times using the existing low-dose chest CT protocol, the appropriate kV was selected for the study using the Dose report provided by the equipment. After taking a basic LDCT shot at 120 kV, 30 mAs, ASIR 50% was applied to this condition. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were assessed by measuring Background noise (B/N). For dose comparison, CTDI_vol and DLP provided by the equipment were compared and analyzed using the formulas. The results indicated that the protocol of scout 140 + LDCT + ASIR 50 + AEC reduced radiation exposure and improved image quality compared to traditional LDCT, providing an optimal protocol. As demonstrated in the experiment, LDCT screenings for asymptomatic normal individuals are crucial, as they involve concerns over excessive radiation exposure per examination. Therefore, applying appropriate parameters is important, and it is expected to contribute positively to the public health in future LDCT based health screenings.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.633-640
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• 2023

With the recent development of static and dynamic modulated brachytherapy methods in brachytherapy, which use radiation shielding to modulate the dose distribution to deliver the dose, the amount of parameters and data required for dose calculation in inverse treatment planning and treatment plan optimization algorithms suitable for new directional beam intensity modulated brachytherapy is increasing. Although intensity-modulated brachytherapy enables accurate dose delivery of radiation, the increased amount of parameters and data increases the elapsed time required for dose calculation. In this study, a GPU-based CUDA-accelerated dose calculation algorithm was constructed to reduce the increase in dose calculation elapsed time. The acceleration of the calculation process was achieved by parallelizing the calculation of the system matrix of the volume of interest and the dose calculation. The developed algorithms were all performed in the same computing environment with an Intel (3.7 GHz, 6-core) CPU and a single NVIDIA GTX 1080ti graphics card, and the dose calculation time was evaluated by measuring only the dose calculation time, excluding the additional time required for loading data from disk and preprocessing operations. The results showed that the accelerated algorithm reduced the dose calculation time by about 30 times compared to the CPU-only calculation. The accelerated dose calculation algorithm can be expected to speed up treatment planning when new treatment plans need to be created to account for daily variations in applicator movement, such as in adaptive radiotherapy, or when dose calculation needs to account for changing parameters, such as in dynamically modulated brachytherapy.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.153-159
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• 2024

In X-ray projection, Unskilled radiologists become skilled through fail exam. This causes the patient to be exposed to unnecessary radiation. In this study, pre-position unskilled radiologic technologist presented ways to improve clinical proficiency. presented a skull lateral x-ray projection practice method using visual, spatial, and assistive devices. In addition, the accuracy and usefulness of the use of assistive devices were evaluated. When X-ray images were taken based on learning, the rotational spacing, which indicates image distortion, was 7.85 ± 1.45 mm and the tiliting spacing was 4.84 ± 0.5 mm. When practicing using visual aids, the rotational spacing is 4.4 ± 0.76 mm and the inclination spacing is 3.01 ± 0.87 mm. using a spatial compensation device, the rotational spacing is 5.2 ± 0.69 mm and the tiliting spacing is 3.33 ± 0.61 mm. Skull lateral X-ray Image distortion caused by empirical photography practice decreased by 5.4%, but image distortion caused by tilting increased by 1.2%. When practicing using a visual assistive devices, the degree of rotational spacing by 40.1% and the tiliting spacing decreased by 30.7% compared to the empirical x-ray exposure practice. When using spatial assistive devices, the rotation interval was reduced by 41.7% and the tilting interval by 23.7% compared to conventional empirical x-ray exposure practice. Therefore, if an unskilled radiologist practices using visual and spatial aids,the accuracy will be improved in skull lateral x-ray projection.

• Journal of Dental Rehabilitation and Applied Science
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.250-259
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• 2023

The use of digital technology in fixed prosthetic treatment using implants enables predictive treatment through diagnosis and virtual surgery by integrating clinical and radiological information of patients. Existing digital scanning methods require several components to be removed, such as removing the healing abutment and connecting the scan body. In the scannable healing abutment developed in consideration of this point, scanning is performed directly on the healing abutment, maintaining soft tissue sealing and simplifying scanning. Digital technology can also be used when obtaining the intermaxillary relationship. Recently, various digital technologies have been reported to acquire the intermaxillary relationship of edentulous patients using surgical guides, patient-specific scanning devices, or scans of the inside of temporary dentures. In this case, the implant-supported fixed prosthesis treatment was performed through scanning the scannable healing abutment and the inner side of the temporary denture to obtain the intermaxillary relationship, thereby simplifying the treatment process and obtaining aesthetically and functionally excellent clinical results.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.83 no.2
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• pp.360-371
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• 2022

Purpose This study aimed to assess the factors influencing aortic unfolding (AU) defined by aortic width on coronary artery calcium (CAC) scan and determine the normal limits for AU. Materials and Methods In this retrospective study, we measured AU in 924 asymptomatic subjects who underwent CAC scanning during routine health screening from June 2015 to June 2018. Multivariate regression analysis was used to evaluate the factors influencing AU. After the exclusion of subjects with risk factors associated with AU, 283 subjects were included in the analysis of normal values of AU. Mean AU, standard deviation, and upper normal limit were calculated. Results Sex, age, CAC score, body mass index, body surface area, hypertension, left ventricular hypertrophy, plasma creatinine, and smoking were significantly associated with AU. The mean AU was 102.2 ± 12.8 mm for men and 93.1 ± 10.7 mm for women. AU increased with advancing age (9.6 mm per decade). Conclusion AU determined from a single measurement on CAC scans was associated with cardiovascular risk factors. The normal limits of AU were defined by age, sex, and body surface area in low-risk subjects in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.81 no.3
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• pp.632-643
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• 2020

Purpose To investigate the correlation between magnetic resonance (MR) image-based radiomics features and the genomic features of breast cancer by focusing on biomolecular intrinsic subtypes and gene expression profiles based on risk scores. Materials and Methods We used the publicly available datasets from the Cancer Genome Atlas and the Cancer Imaging Archive to extract the radiomics features of 122 breast cancers on MR images. Furthermore, PAM50 intrinsic subtypes were classified and their risk scores were determined from gene expression profiles. The relationship between radiomics features and biomolecular characteristics was analyzed. A penalized generalized regression analysis was performed to build prediction models. Results The PAM50 subtype demonstrated a statistically significant association with the maximum 2D diameter (p = 0.0189), degree of correlation (p = 0.0386), and inverse difference moment normalized (p = 0.0337). Among risk score systems, GGI and GENE70 shared 8 correlated radiomic features (p = 0.0008-0.0492) that were statistically significant. Although the maximum 2D diameter was most significantly correlated to both score systems (p = 0.0139, and p = 0.0008), the overall degree of correlation of the prediction models was weak with the highest correlation coefficient of GENE70 being 0.2171. Conclusion Maximum 2D diameter, degree of correlation, and inverse difference moment normalized demonstrated significant relationships with the PAM50 intrinsic subtypes along with gene expression profile-based risk scores such as GENE70, despite weak correlations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.81 no.2
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• pp.324-336
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• 2020

Cardiovascular calcifications can occur in various cardiovascular diseases and can serve as a biomarker for cardiovascular event prediction. Advances in CT have enabled evaluation of calcifications in cardiovascular structures not only on ECG-gated CT but also on non-ECG-gated CT. Therefore, many studies have been conducted on the clinical relevance of cardiovascular calcifications in patients. In this study, we divided cardiovascular calcifications into three classes, i.e., coronary artery, thoracic aorta, and cardiac valve calcifications, which are closely associated with cardiovascular events. Further, we briefly described pericardial calcifications, which can be found incidentally. Since the start of lung cancer screening in Korea in the second half of 2019, the number of non-enhanced, non-ECG-gated, low-dose chest CT has been increasing, and the number of incidentally found cardiovascular calcifications has also been increasing. Therefore, understanding the relevance of cardiovascular calcifications on non-enhanced, non-ECG-gated, low-dose chest CT and their proper reporting are important for radiologists.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2024

Proton therapy is known for its superior treatment method due to Bragg peak. To enhance the therapeutic effects of protons, research has been conducted on distributing gold nanoparticles within tumors to increase the absorbed dose. While previous studies focused on handling gold nanoparticles at micrometer and nonometer scale, this study proposes a method to computationally estimate the effect of gold nanoparticles at the millimeter scale. The Geant4 toolkit was applied to computational modeling. Assuming a uniform distribution of water, similar to the human body, and gold nanoparticles, the concentration of gold nanoparticles was adjusted using density ratios. When the density ratio was 5%, the gain in absorbed energy due to gold nanoparticles was nearly twice that of the pure water phantom at the Bragg peak. As the density ratio increased, the gain in absorbed energy linearly increased. When gold nanoparticles were distributed in only one voxel at the Bragg peak, the energy of the protons affected only the neighboring voxels. However, in cases where gold nanoparticles were distributed over a wide area, the volume showing 95% of the maximum absorbed energy (9.46 keV) for the pure water phantom (9.95 keV) exhibited an improvement in absorbed energy over a region 16 times larger, and this region increased as the density ratio increased. Further research is needed to quantify the relationship between the density ratio of gold nanoparticles and the relative biological effect (RBE) in the millimeter scale.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.27-36
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• 2024

In this study, When acquisition thyroid scintigraphy images, a parallel hole collimator was applied, and the difference from the pinhole collimator was quantitatively analyzed under each image acquisition condition. Visual size, resolution, sensitivity, signal to noise ratio (SNR), and contrast to noise ratio (CNR) were evaluated using thyroid phantom and point source. When comparing visual size, it was confirmed that an image similar to the size of the pinhole collimator could be obtained only when a magnification ratio of about 2.00 to 2.09 times when applying a parallel hole collimator. There was no tendency in FWHM(mm) measurement using a point source, and sensitivity was high in the parallel hole collimator. SNR and CNR were high when using a low magnification ratio, matrix size of 128×128, and a parallel hole collimator. In images of similar size to the naked eye, when the matrix size was the same, both SNR and CNR were high in the pinhole collimator. Therefore, when performing a thyroid scintigraphy test, if appropriate conditions are set according to the situation of each hospital and a parallel hole collimator is applied, it can be a good option in terms of equipment utilization and work efficiency.