• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.333-340
• /
• 2009

MR compatible coaxial-slot antenna for microwave hyperthermia was developed while its structure and size of each part were determined by computer simulation using finite element method(FEM). Its local heating performance was evaluated using tissue-mimic phantom and swine muscles. 2% agarose gel mixed with 6mM/$\ell$ $MnCl_2$ as a biological tissue-mimic phantom was heated by the proposed antenna driven by a 2.45GHz microwave generator. The temperature changes of the phantom were monitored using multi-channel digital thermometer at the distance of 0mm, 5mm, 10mm and 20mm from the tip center of the antenna. Also muscle tissue of swine was heated for 2 and 5minutes with 50W and 30W of microwave generator powers, respectively, to evaluate the local heating performance of the antenna. MRI compatibility was also verified by acquiring MR images and MR temperature map. MR signals were acquired from the agarose gel phantom using $T2^*$ GRE sequence with 1.5T clinical MRI scanner(Signa Echospeed, GE, Milwaukee, WI, U.S.A.) at Pusan Paik Hospital and were transferred to PC in order to reconstruct MR images and temperature map using proton resonance frequency(PRF) method and laboratory-developed phase unwrapping algorithm. Authors found that it has no severe distortion due to the antenna inserted into the phantom. Finally, we can conclude that the suggested coaxial-slot antenna has an excellent local heating performance for both of tissue-mimic phantom and swine muscle, and it is compatible to 1.5T MRI scanner.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.427-433
• /
• 2018

Because of the expectation of the non-invasive treatment effect, Various studies on the treatment of varicose veins using focused ultrasound are reported. In this study, the bio-tissue phantom and tissue equivalent phantom that can be applied to estimation of ultrasonic varicose veins treatment effect. Each phantom was evaluated for its usefulness by evaluating the acoustic characteristics and the shrinkage rate according to the ultrasonic irradiation. A multi-layer structure phantom with three layers of skin, fat, and muscle was constructed considering the structure of the tissue where the varicose veins occurred. The materials constituting each layer were made to have characteristics similar to human body. In addition, the multi-layered phantoms with blood vessel mimic tube, with bovine blood vessel, and with animal tissue were fabricated. The degree of shrinkage of blood vessel mimic material and vascular tissue according to ultrasonic irradiation was evaluated using B-mode image. As the results of this study, it was thought that the proposed phantom could be used effectively in the evaluation of ultrasonic varicose veins treatment. In addition, it is thought that these phantoms could be applied to the development of varicose vein treatment device using the focused ultrasound and the verification of the therapeutic effect.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.153-159
• /
• 2014

As the number of treatments in the therapeutic ultrasound field targeted at fat tissue increase, the performance of the equipment should be evaluated for safety using a fat phantom. In this study, a fat phantom was fabricated using olive oil and a tissue-mimicking material (TMM) phantom. To evaluate the acoustic properties of the TMM phantom according to the changes in the olive oil, the composition ratio of a liquid mixture of olive oil with a surfactant was adjusted from 5-20% in 5% steps. The acoustic properties of the phantom were evaluated using the sound velocity, attenuation coefficient, density, and acoustic impedance. The experimental results showed that the sound velocity decreased with increasing amount of olive oil but the other acoustic properties did not change. In addition, the phantom using an olive-oil mixture with a 15% composition ratio was most similar to the acoustic characteristics of fat tissue with a sound velocity of 1477.35 m/s, an attenuation coefficient of 0.514 dB/MHz-cm, a density of $1.07g/cm^3$, and an acoustic impedance of 1.575 MRayl. These experimental results are expected contribute to the accuracy of the results using a TMM phantom and will be useful for the therapeutic ultrasound field targeted at subcutaneous fat tissue.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.9 no.7
• /
• pp.509-513
• /
• 2015

In this study, we evaluated the thermal denaturation characteristics of reusable NIPAM tissue mimicking (TM) Phantom by measuring the thermal sensitivity. And the changes of acoustic characteristic and thermal denaturation shape in NIPAM TM phantom according to the number of re-use time and re-use period were observed. With the result, as the sonication time is increased, the sound velocity of NIPAM phantom was decreased by 100 m/s and the attenuation was increased slightly. However, the changes according to the re-use period was not observed. In the thermal denaturation shape and size observation by ultrasound sonicaton, the remarkable changes have not been confirmed. With the result of this study, NIPAM Phantom was considered appropriate to evaluate and predict the effect of therapeutic ultrasound by in repeated sonication test.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.9 no.7
• /
• pp.523-528
• /
• 2015

In this study, we evaluated the heating characteristics of single sonication and superposed two low-intensity ultrasonic sonication. Compare the results, the superposed sonication was showed a superior thermal effect than single sonication. And the maximum temperature was increased as 120-150%. The starting time of temperature rising has been shortened in superposed sonication. In addition, the time up to the maximum temperature has been shortened, too. In generally, as the ultrasonic intensity is higher, the more surface damage is occurred. However, in the case of superposed sonication, the same thermal effect had be confirmed without surface damage. Through the results of the study, we thought that the superposed sonication will be able to reduce the intensity of the ultrasonic treatment. And, by using the low-intensity, the more safe and more effect therapy will be possible in therapeutic ultrasound application.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.7 no.6
• /
• pp.433-439
• /
• 2013

In this study, human head-mimicking phantom was developed for brain disease treatment study using focused ultrasound. Acoustic parameters of skin, skull and brain were investigated through literature investigation and adequate substitutes according to each tissue were suggested. In the case of skin phantom, construction ratio of glycerol-based TMM phantom was controlled to mimic real skin. The suitability of skull substitutes was evaluated through measurement of acoustic parameters. In the case of brain phantom, transparent egg white phantom was used to observe thermal properties of focused ultrasound. Combined human-head-mimicking phantom using each substitutes was fabricated for development of brain disease treatment protocol. Denaturation of brain phantom according to ultrasonic condition was observed for validation.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.2
• /
• pp.250-257
• /
• 2007

Functional gastrointestinal disorders affect millions of people of all age regardless of race and sex. There are, however, rare diagnostic methods for the functional gastrointestinal disorders because functional disorders show no evidence of organic and physical causes. Our research group identified recently that the gastrointestinal tract well in the patients with the functional gastrointestinal disorders becomes more rigid than healthy people when palpating the abdominal regions overlaying the gastrointestinal tract. The aim is, therefore, to develop a diagnostic method for the functional gastrointestinal disorders based on quantitative measurement of the rigidity of the gastrointestinal tract well using ultrasound technique. For this purpose, a preliminary ultrasound diagnostic system was developed and verified through phantom tests. The system consisted of transmitter, ultrasonic transducer, receiver, TGC, and CPLD, and verified via a phantom test. For the phantom test, ten soft-tissue specimens were harvested from porcine. Five of them were then treated chemically to mimic a rigid condition of gastrointestinal tract well, which was induced by functional gastrointestinal disorders. Additionally, the specimens were tested mechanically to identify if the mimic was reasonable. The customized ultrasound system was finally verified through application to human subjects with/without functional gastrointestinal disorders(Normal and Patient Groups). It was identified from the mechanical test that the chemically treated specimens were more rigid than normalspecimen. This finding was favorably compared with the result obtained from the phantom test. The phantom test also showed that ultrasound system well described the specimen geometric characteristics and detected an alteration in the specimens. The maximum amplitude of the ultrasonic reflective signal in the rigid specimens $(0.2{\pm}0.1Vp-p)$ at the interface between the fat and muscle layers was explicitly higher than that in the normal specimens $(0.1{\pm}0.0Vp-p)$ (p<0.05). Clinical tests using our customized ultrasound system for human subject showed that the maximum amplitudes of the ultrasonic reflective signals nea. to the gastrointestinal tract well for the patient group$(2.6{\pm}0.3Vp-p)$ were generally higher than those in normal group$(0.1{\pm}0.2Vp-p)$ (p<0.05). These results suggest that newly designed diagnostic system based on ultrasound technique may diagnose enough the functional gastrointestinal disorders.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.31-39
• /
• 2009

Purpose : This study proposes the keyhole method in order to improve the time resolution of the proton resonance frequency(PRF) MR temperature monitoring technique. The values of Root Mean Square (RMS) error of measured temperature value and Signal-to-Noise Ratio(SNR) obtained from the keyhole and full phase encoded temperature images were compared. Materials and Methods : The PRF method combined with GRE sequence was used to get MR temperature images using a clinical 1.5T MR scanner. It was conducted on the tissue-mimic 2% agarose gel phantom and swine's hock tissue. A MR compatible coaxial slot antenna driven by microwave power generator at 2.45GHz was used to heat the object in the magnetic bore for 5 minutes followed by a sequential acquisition of MR raw data during 10 minutes of cooling period. The acquired raw data were transferred to PC after then the keyhole images were reconstructed by taking the central part of K-space data with 128, 64, 32 and 16 phase encoding lines while the remaining peripheral parts were taken from the 1st reference raw data. The RMS errors were compared with the 256 full encoded self-reference temperature image while the SNR values were compared with the zero filling images. Results : As phase encoding number at the center part on the keyhole temperature images decreased to 128, 64, 32 and 16, the RMS errors of the measured temperature increased to 0.538, 0.712, 0.768 and 0.845$^{\circ}C$, meanwhile SNR values were maintained as the phase encoding number of keyhole part is reduced. Conclusion : This study shows that the keyhole technique is successfully applied to temperature monitoring procedure to increases the temporal resolution by standardizing the matrix size, thus maintained the SNR values. In future, it is expected to implement the MR real time thermal imaging using keyhole method which is able to reduce the scan time with minimal thermal variations.