• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.829-839
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• 2021

Objective: To compare the diagnostic performance of contrast-enhanced radial T1-weighted gradient-echo 3-tesla (3T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) for the detection of visceral pleural surface invasion (VPSI). Visceral pleural invasion by non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) can be classified into two types: PL1 (without VPSI), invasion of the elastic layer of the visceral pleura without reaching the visceral pleural surface, and PL2 (with VPSI), full invasion of the visceral pleura. Materials and Methods: Thirty-three patients with pathologically confirmed VPSI by NSCLC were retrospectively reviewed. Multidetector CT and contrast-enhanced 3T MRI with a free-breathing radial three-dimensional fat-suppressed volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination (VIBE) pulse sequence were compared in terms of the length of contact, angle of mass margin, and arch distance-to-maximum tumor diameter ratio. Supplemental evaluation of the tumor-pleura interface (smooth versus irregular) could only be performed with MRI (not discernible on CT). Results: At the tumor-pleura interface, radial VIBE MRI revealed a smooth margin in 20 of 21 patients without VPSI and an irregular margin in 10 of 12 patients with VPSI, yielding an accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and F-score for VPSI detection of 91%, 83%, 95%, 91%, 91%, and 87%, respectively. The McNemar test and receiver operating characteristics curve analysis revealed no significant differences between the diagnostic accuracies of CT and MRI for evaluating the contact length, angle of mass margin, or arch distance-to-maximum tumor diameter ratio as predictors of VPSI. Conclusion: The diagnostic performance of contrast-enhanced radial T1-weighted gradient-echo 3T MRI and CT were equal in terms of the contact length, angle of mass margin, and arch distance-to-maximum tumor diameter ratio. The advantage of MRI is its clear depiction of the tumor-pleura interface margin, facilitating VPSI detection.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.9
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• pp.866-877
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• 2022

Objective: The optimal imaging approach for evaluating pathological nipple discharge remains unclear. We investigated the value of adding ductography to ultrasound (US) for evaluating pathologic nipple discharge in patients with negative mammography findings. Materials and Methods: From July 2003 to December 2018, 101 women (mean age, 46.3 ± 12.2 years; range, 23-75 years) with pathologic nipple discharge were evaluated using pre-ductography (initial) US, ductography, and post-ductography US. The imaging findings were reviewed retrospectively. The standard reference was surgery (70 patients) or > 2 years of follow-up with US (31 patients). The diagnostic performances of initial US, ductography, and post-ductography US for detecting malignancy were compared using the McNemar's test or a generalized estimating equation. Results: In total, 47 papillomas, 30 other benign lesions, seven high-risk lesions, and 17 malignant lesions were identified as underlying causes of pathologic nipple discharge. Only eight of the 17 malignancies were detected on the initial US, while the remaining nine malignancies were detected by ductography. Among the nine malignancies detected by ductography, eight were detected on post-ductography US and could be localized for US-guided intervention. The sensitivities of ductography (94.1% [16/17]) and post-ductography US (94.1% [16/17]) were significantly higher than those of initial US (47.1% [8/17]; p = 0.027 and 0.013, respectively). The negative predictive value of post-ductography US (96.9% [31/32]) was significantly higher than that of the initial US (83.3% [45/54]; p = 0.006). Specificity was significantly higher for initial US than for ductography and post-ductography US (p = 0.001 for all). Conclusion: The combined use of ductography and US has a high sensitivity for detecting malignancy in patients with pathologic nipple discharge and negative mammography. Ductography findings enable lesion localization on second-look post-ductography US, thus facilitating the selection of optimal treatment plans.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.664-673
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• 2022

Objective: To evaluate the performance of baseline clinical characteristics and pretherapeutic histogram parameters derived from T2 mapping of the extraocular muscles (EOMs) in the prediction of treatment response to intravenous glucocorticoid (IVGC) therapy for active and moderate-to-severe thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO) and to investigate the effect of fat-suppression (FS) in T2 mapping in this prediction. Materials and Methods: A total of 79 patients clinically diagnosed with active, moderate-to-severe TAO (47 female, 32 male; mean age ± standard deviation, 46.1 ± 10 years), including 43 patients with a total of 86 orbits in the responsive group and 36 patients with a total of 72 orbits in the unresponsive group, were enrolled. Baseline clinical characteristics and pretherapeutic histogram parameters derived from T2 mapping with FS (i.e., FS T2 mapping) or without FS (i.e., conventional T2 mapping) of EOMs were compared between the two groups. Independent predictors of treatment response to IVGC were identified using multivariable analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to evaluate the predictive performance of the prediction models. Differences between the models were examined using the DeLong test. Results: Compared to the unresponsive group, the responsive group had a shorter disease duration, lower kurtosis (FS-kurtosis), lower standard deviation, larger 75th, 90th, and 95th (FS-95th) T2 relaxation times in FS mapping and lower kurtosis in conventional T2 mapping. Multivariable analysis revealed that disease duration, FS-95th percentile, and FS-kurtosis were independent predictors of treatment response. The combined model, integrating all identified predictors, had an optimized area under the ROC curve of 0.797, 88.4% sensitivity, and 62.5% specificity, which were significantly superior to those of the imaging model (p = 0.013). Conclusion: An integrated combination of disease duration, FS-95th percentile, and FS-kurtosis was a potential predictor of treatment response to IVGC in patients with active and moderate-to-severe TAO. FS T2 mapping was superior to conventional T2 mapping in terms of prediction.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.11
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• pp.1067-1077
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• 2022

Objective: To determine whether Sonazoid-enhanced ultrasound (SZUS) was noninferior to SonoVue-enhanced ultrasound (SVUS) in diagnosing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) using the same diagnostic criteria. Materials and Methods: This prospective, single-center, noninferiority study (NCT04847726) enrolled 105 at-risk participants (71 male; mean age ± standard deviation, 63 ± 11 years; range, 26-86 years) with treatment-naïve solid hepatic nodules (≥ 1 cm). All participants underwent same-day SZUS (experimental method) and SVUS (control method) for one representative nodule per participant. Images were interpreted by three readers (the operator and two independent readers). All malignancies were diagnosed histopathologically, while the benignity of other lesions was confirmed by follow-up stability or pathology. The primary endpoint was per-lesion diagnostic accuracy for HCC pooled across three readers using the conventional contrast-enhanced ultrasound diagnostic criteria, including arterial phase hyperenhancement followed by mild (assessed within 2 minutes after contrast injection) and late (≥ 60 seconds with a delay of 5 minutes) washout. The noninferiority delta was -10%p. Furthermore, different time delays were compared as washout criteria in SZUS, including delays of 2, 5, and > 10 minutes. Results: A total of 105 lesions (HCCs [n = 61], non-HCC malignancies [n = 19], and benign [n = 25]) were evaluated. Using the 5-minutes washout criterion, per-lesion accuracy of SZUS pooled across the three readers (72.4%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 64.1%-79.3%) was noninferior to that of SVUS (71.4%; 95% CI, 63.1%-78.6%), meeting the statistical criterion for non-inferiority (difference of 0.95%p; 95% CI, -3.8%p-5.7%p). The arterial phase hyperenhancement combined with the 5-minutes washout criterion showed the same sensitivity as that of the > 10-minutes criterion (59.0% vs. 59.0%, p = 0.989), and the specificities were not significantly different (90.9% vs. 86.4%, p = 0.072). Conclusion: SZUS was noninferior to SVUS for diagnosing HCC in at-risk patients using the same diagnostic criteria. No significant improvement in HCC diagnosis was observed by extending the washout time delay from 5 to 10 minutes.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.23-38
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• 2019

The social network service (SNS) is one of the important marketing channels, so many companies actively exploit SNSs by posting SNS messages with appropriate content and style for their customers. In this paper, we focused on the psychological distances embedded in the SNS messages and developed a method to measure the psychological distance in SNS message by mixing a traditional content analysis, natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning. Through a traditional content analysis by human coding, the psychological distance was extracted from the SNS message, and these coding results were used for input data for NLP and machine learning. With NLP, word embedding was executed and Bag of Word was created. The Support Vector Machine, one of machine learning techniques was performed to train and test the psychological distance in SNS message. As a result, sensitivity and precision of SVM prediction were significantly low because of the extreme skewness of dataset. We improved the performance of SVM by balancing the ratio of data by upsampling technique and using data coded with the same value in first content analysis. All performance index was more than 70%, which showed that psychological distance can be measured well.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.812-822
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• 2019

Objective: To assess the diagnostic value of combining diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) with conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for differentiating between pathologic and traumatic fractures at extremities from metastasis. Materials and Methods: Institutional Review Board approved this retrospective study and informed consent was waived. This study included 49 patients each with pathologic and traumatic fractures at extremities. The patients underwent conventional MRI combined with DWI. For qualitative analysis, two radiologists (R1 and R2) independently reviewed three imaging sets with a crossover design using a 5-point scale and a 3-scale confidence level: DWI plus non-enhanced MRI (NEMR; DW set), NEMR plus contrast-enhanced fat-saturated T1-weighted imaging (CEFST1; CE set), and DWI plus NEMR plus CEFST1 (combined set). McNemar's test was used to compare the diagnostic performances among three sets and perform subgroup analyses (single vs. multiple bone abnormality, absence/presence of extra-osseous mass, and bone enhancement at fracture margin). Results: Compared to the CE set, the combined set showed improved diagnostic accuracy (R1, 84.7 vs. 95.9%; R2, 91.8 vs. 95.9%, p < 0.05) and specificity (R1, 71.4% vs. 93.9%, p < 0.005; R2, 85.7% vs. 98%, p = 0.07), with no difference in sensitivities (p > 0.05). In cases of absent extra-osseous soft tissue mass and present fracture site enhancement, the combined set showed improved accuracy (R1, 82.9-84.4% vs. 95.6-96.3%, p < 0.05; R2, 90.2-91.1% vs. 95.1-95.6%, p < 0.05) and specificity (R1, 68.3-72.9% vs. 92.7-95.8%, p < 0.005; R2, 83.0-85.4% vs. 97.6-98.0%, p = 0.07). Conclusion: Combining DWI with conventional MRI improved the diagnostic accuracy and specificity while retaining sensitivity for differentiating between pathologic and traumatic fractures from metastasis at extremities.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.641-648
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• 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether three-dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance imaging could improve diagnostic accuracy for suspected posterior ligamentous complex (PLC) disruption. Materials and Methods: We used 20 freshly harvested goat spine samples with 60 segments and intact surrounding soft tissue. The animals were aged 1-1.5 years and consisted of 8 males and 12 females, which were sexually mature but had not reached adult weights. We created a paraspinal contusion model by percutaneously injecting 10 mL saline into each side of the interspinous ligament (ISL). All segments underwent T2-weighted sagittal and coronal short inversion time inversion recovery (STIR) scans as well as coronal and sagittal 3D proton density-weighted spectrally selective inversion recovery (3D-PDW-SPIR) scans acquired at 1.5T. Following scanning, some ISLs were cut and then the segments were rescanned using the same magnetic resonance (MR) techniques. Two radiologists independently assessed the MR images, and the reliability of ISL tear interpretation was assessed using the kappa coefficient. The chi-square test was used to compare the diagnostic accuracy of images obtained using the different MR techniques. Results: The interobserver reliability for detecting ISL disruption was high for all imaging techniques (0.776-0.949). The sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy of the coronal 3D-PDW-SPIR technique for detecting ISL tears were 100, 96.9, and 97.9%, respectively, which were significantly higher than those of the sagittal STIR (p = 0.000), coronal STIR (p = 0.000), and sagittal 3D-PDW-SPIR (p = 0.001) techniques. Conclusion: Compared to other MR methods, coronal 3D-PDW-SPIR provides a more accurate diagnosis of ISL disruption. Adding coronal 3D-PDW-SPIR to a routine MR protocol may help to identify PLC disruptions in cases with nearby contusion.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.67-76
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• 2024

Objectives: Direct reading instruments (DRIs) are widely used by industrial hygienists and other experts for preliminary survey and identifying source locations in many industrial fields. Photoionization detectors (PIDs), which are a form of hand-held portable DRIs, have been used for a variety of airborne vaporized chemicals, especially evaporated hydrocarbon solvents. The benefits of PIDs are high sensitivity between each chemical, competitive price, and portability. With the goal of increasing the accuracy of logged PID concentrations, previous studies have performed tests for the assessment of single chemical compounds, not mixtures. The purpose of this preliminary study was to measure mixtures with a PID and charcoal tube at the same time and compare the accuracy between them. Methods: A chamber test was implemented with different mixtures of hydrocarbon chemicals (acetone, isopropyl alcohol, toluene, m-xylene) and levels in the range of 14 to 864 ppm. Three PIDs and charcoal tubes were connected to the chamber and measured the chemical mixtures simultaneously. A comparison of accuracy and the PID group of concentrations with manufacture correction factor (M_CF) and field correction factor (F_CF) applied was performed. Results: The accuracy of the PID concentrations data-logged from the PID did not meet the accuracy criteria except for the mixture level B and C logged from PID No. 2, which was 18% of all tests for meeting accuracy criteria. The mean and standard deviation (SD) of concentration (ppm) of the charcoal tube followed by each mixtures' level were 10.37±0.26, 155.33±5.28, 300.80±11.65, and 774.93±22.65, respectively. When applying F_CF into the PID concentrations, the accuracy increased by nearly 82%. However, in the case of M_CF, none met the accuracy criterion. Between the PID there were differences of logged concentrations. Conclusions: In this preliminary study, the concentration of a logged PID with F_CF applied was a better way to increase accuracy compared to applying M_CF. We suggest that additional research is necessary to consider environmental factors such as temperature and humidity.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.600-610
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• 2004

Background : The plasma B-type natriuretic peptide(BNP) concentration increases with the degree of pulmonary hypertension in patients with chronic respiratory disease. The aim of this study was to examine the prognostic role of BNP in the acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD). Method : We selected 67 patients who were admitted our hospital because of an acute exacerbation of COPD. Their BNP levels were checked on admission at the Emergency Department. Their medical records were analyzed retrospectively. The patients were divided into two groups according to their in-hospital mortality. The patients' medical history, comobidity, exacerbation type, blood gas analysis, pulmonary function, APACHE II severity score and plasma BNP level were compared. Results : Multiple logistic regression analysis identified three independent predictors of mortality: $FEV_1$, APACHE II score and plasma BNP level. The decedents group showed a lower $FEV_1$($28{\pm}7$ vs. $37{\pm}15%$, p=0.005), a higher APACHE II score($22.4{\pm}6.1$ vs. $15.8{\pm}4.7$, p=0.000) and a higher BNP level ($201{\pm}116$ vs. $77{\pm}80pg/mL$, p=0.000) than the sSurvivors group. When the BNP cut-off level was set to 88pg/mL using the receiver operating characteristic curve, the sensitivity was 90% and the specificity was 75% in differentiating between the survivors and decedents. On Fisher's exact test, the odds ratio for mortality was 21.2 (95% CI 2.49 to 180.4) in the patients with a BNP level > 88pg/mL. Conclusion : The plasma BNP level might be a predictor of mortality in an acute exacerbation of COPD as well as the $FEV_1$ and APACHE II score.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.173-177
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• 2003

Purpose : Recently, different results about factors affecting accurate quantitation of 24-hr urinary protein(24UP) amount using spot urine protein/creatinine ratio(PCR) have been reported. The current study was designed to evaluate correlation between 24UP amounts and PCR in children, and the effect of 24UP amounts, age, sex, and glomerular filtration rate(GFR) on this correlation. Methods : Among 94 patients who visited the department of pediatrics in Busan Paik Hospital from March 2002 to August 2002, 68 patients whose urinary creatinine excretion was ${\geq}15mg/kg/day$ were included in this study. All the patients were divided into I, II/A, B group(I : 24UP<500 mg/day, II : $24UP{\geq}500mg/day$, A : <10 years of age, B : ${\geq}10years$ of age). Pearson correlation analysis was performed between 24UP and PCR to evaluate the relationship. We defined fractional difference between 24UP and PCR, and then performed multiple regression analysis with 24UP amount, age, GFR and fractional difference. Results : There was a strong positive linear correlation between 24UP and PCR(R=0.936, P<0.0001) in all patients, and the correlation was also good in each group. Using PCR cutoff values of 0.5, the PCR provided high sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value in predicting 24UP amount ${\geq}500mg$. The factors affecting accurate quantitation of proteinuria using spot urine PCR was age, not 24UP amount, GFR or sex. Conclusion : Spot urine PCR is a useful test but has limitations in predicting 24UP amount. Therefore, it should be used only as screening method. Age-adjusted PCR cutoff values may be necessary to predict 24UP amount in children with proteinuria.