Since the development of endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), the importance in the using EUS in pancreas and biliary tree has gradually increased. In order to properly observe the pancreas and biliary tree in EUS, it is necessary to learn landmark structures at each location, such as the stomach and duodenum, and to learn the positional relationship between them and normal structures. In this article, we will deal with the examination method at each position of the linear and radial EUS and reveal the normal EUS image.

배경/목적: 췌장 가성 낭종은 급성과 만성 췌장염의 흔한 합병증이다. 내시경 초음파를 통한 배액술은 여러단계와 여러장비들이 필요하다. 모든 병원에서 선형초음파내시경 기계 및 투시영상 검사실을 같이 갖추진 못하고 있다. 우리는 투시영상없이 초음파내시경을 통한 췌장가성낭종의 배액술의 안전성과 효율성을 확인하고자 한다. 방법: 2009년 1월부터 2016년 12월까지 초음파내시경을 통해서 가성낭종의 배액술을 시행한 10명의 환자를 분석하였다. 경위적 접근법을 통하여 시행하였으며, 1개 혹은 2개 의 7Fr 이중돼지꼬리 플라스틱 배액관을 사용하여 배액술을 시행하였다. 결과: 기술적 성공률은 100% 이며, 임상적 성공률은 80% 였다. 2명의 환자에서는 내시경적 배액술로성공하지 못하여, 경피부배액술을 시행하였고, 수술적치료 없이 호전되었다. 3명의 환자에서는 합병증이 발생하였다(출혈, 감염, 스텐트 이탈). 평균 36.5개월을 추적관찰하였을때 가성낭종이 재발한 환자는 없었다. 결론: 투시영상없이 초음파내시경을 통한 췌장 가성낭종의 배액술은 췌장가성낭종의 치료에서 안전하고, 기술적으로 가능하며, 효과적인 방법이다.

Background: The toe-spread-out (TSO) exercise has been introduced as a strengthening exercise for the abductor hallucis muscle in subjects with hallux valgus. Visual biofeedback using ultrasound imaging during exercise, may increase the ability to selectively contract the abductor hallucis muscle, compared with exercise alone. Objects: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of ultrasound imaging visual feedback during the TSO exercise with respect to its influence on the angle of the first metatarsophalangeal joint (1st MPJ) and the cross-sectional area (CSA) of the abductor hallucis muscle in subjects with hallux valgus. Methods: Twenty-five healthy young subjects with a mean average age of 22.5 years, and a standard deviation of 2.3 years, were recruited for this study. Hallux valgus was defined as an angles greater than 15° angle of 1st MPJ. Goniometric measurement was used to determine the angle of 1st MPJ. In addition, an ultrasound system was used to collect the CSA of the abductor hallucis muscle in each foot. The angle of the 1st MPJ and CSA of the abductor hallucis were measured in three positions; the resting position, during TSO exercise, and during TSO exercise in conjunction with real-time ultrasound imaging feedback. All data analyzed using a repeated analysis of variance with Bonferroni correction in order to compare the dependent variables in all three positions. Statistical level of significance was set up as p<.05. Results: The angle of the 1st MPJ was noted to be significantly reduced and the CSA of the abductor hallucis to be significantly greater during TSO exercise used in conjunction with ultrasound imaging visual feedback, compared to when the values were recorded during TSO exercise alone (p<.05). Conclusion: Based on these findings, it can be concluded that the application of ultrasound imaging visual feedback during TSO exercise is more effective in contracting selectively the abductor hallucis than the use of exercise alone.

This study aimed to investigate the association between carotid artery calcification (CAC) on panoramic radiograph and intima-media thickeness (IMT) measured on ultrasound. Panoramic radiographs which were taken from dental patients aged 50 years and older who visited for dental treatment were screened for the presence of CAC. The study group was composed of seven patients (four males and three females, average age 74.4±4.2 yrs) with CAC detected on panoramic radiographs, and the control group eleven patients (seven males and four females, average age 64.5±10.1 yrs) without CAC. All the patients underwent carotid ultrasonography to measure carotid IMT. The IMT was compared between the groups by nonparametric analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The range of IMT of the study group was 1.10~2.0 mm, while that of the control group 0.60~1.10 mm. The mean of IMT was 1.50±0.34 mm in the study group and 0.85±0.14 mm in the control group, and there was statistically significant difference between the two groups (p<.01). In conclusion, CAC detected on panoramic radiograph might have an association with atherosclerosis

The lower trapezius muscle is an important stabilizer and primary mover of the scapula. The potential use of ultrasound imaging to evaluate scapular muscle function warrants investigation. The purpose of this study is to use ultrasound imaging for determining the effectiveness of 4 different isometric exercises for maximally activating the lower trapezius muscles in healthy subjects. Twenty-eight (14 men and 14 women) volunteers were recruited for this study. Thickness measurements of the lower trapezius muscles were recorded during 4 exercises: latissimus pulldown (LP), prone V-raise (PV), prone row (PR), and modified prone cobra (MP). Lower trapezius muscle thickness was measured 3 times by 2 investigators at a point 3 cm lateral to the lateral edge of the T8 spinous process. The order of 4 exercise execution was randomized for each participant. To identify statistical significance, one-way ANOVA with repeated measures was used with the significance level of .05. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for intra-reliability was .86~.98 and inter-rater reliability .83~.96 for the lower trapezius, respectively (p<.01). Thickness changes in the lower trapezius muscles between the relaxed and contracted states in men were as follows: LP (, 182%), MP (, 167%), PV (, 149%), and PR (, 133%). In women the values were as follows: LP (, 163%), MP (, 131%), PV (, 129%), and PR ( mm, 100%). Thickness of the lower trapezius muscles significantly differed between exercises in both the gender (p<.01). The LP was the most effective exercise for increasing the activation of the lower trapezius muscle in both the gender. We recommend performing the LP exercise for strengthening the lower trapezius muscles.

The aim of this study is to compare measurements of abdominal muscle thickness using ultrasonography imaging (USI) to those using a special transducer head device, during five different trunk stabilization exercises, ultimately to determine which exercise led to the greatest muscle thickness. Thirty eight healthy subjects participated in this cross-sectional study. The five types of trunk stabilization - i.e., a sit-up on the supine, an upper and lower extremity raise with quadruped on the prone, a leg raise in sitting on the ball, trunk rolling on the ball, and balance using sling on the prone position - were each performed with an abdominal draw. The thickness of the abdominal muscle - including the transverse abdominal (TrA), internal oblique (IO), and external oblique (EO) - was measured by USI with a special transducer head device, at rest and then at contraction in each position. Data were analyzed using one-way repeated ANOVA with the level of significance set at =.05. The results were as follows: 1) the TrA thickness was statistically significant (p<.05), whereas the IO and EO thicknesses were not (p>.05); 2) among the five types of trunk stabilization, TrA thickness significantly increased with the balance using a sling in the prone position, (p<.05), whereas no significant difference was noted for the four types of trunk stabilization (p>.05); 3) reliability data showed that there was a high degree of consistency among the measurements taken using the special transducer head device (ICC=.92). In conclusion, the balance using a sling in the prone position was more effective than any of the four other types of trunk stabilization in increasing TrA thickness in healthy subjects.

The purpose of this study was to investigate intra-rater reliability and determine the validity of electromyography (EMG) measurements to represent muscle activity and ultrasonography (US) to represent muscle thickness during manual muscle testing (MMT) to external abdominal oblique (EO) and lumbar multifidus (MF). Twenty healthy subjects were recruited for this study and asked to perform MMT at differing levels. The subjects' muscle activity using EMG was measured by a ratio to maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) and root mean square (RMS) methods. The subjects' muscle thickness using US was measured by raw muscle thickness and change ratio of thickness to maximum (MVC) or resting condition. In three trials, measurements were performed on each subject by one examiner. The intra-rater reliability of measurements of EMG and US to EO and MF was calculated using intra-class coefficients. The intra-rater reliability of all measurements was excellent (ICC=.75~.98) in EMG and US. The conduct validity was calculated by one-way ANOVA with repeated measurements to compare whether the EMG and US measurements were different between MMT at different levels. There was only a significant difference between all grades at %MVC thickness measurement of US. These results suggest that a %MVC thickness measurement of US was a more sensitive and discriminate in all manual muscle testing grades. This information will be useful for the selection of US measurement and analysis methods in clinics.

  The objective of this paper is to remove noises of image based on the heuristic noises filter and to extract a tumor region by using morphology techniques in breast ultrasound image. Similar objective studies have been conducted based on ultrasound imag

Since ultrasound has different reflections depending on components of organization, analysis of ultrasound images of skeletal muscle can offer both quantitative and qualitative reports as concerns skeletal muscle structure. This study is focused on the ultrasound method for evaluating the structural characteristics of skeletal muscle and also conducted to examine its practicality. After obtaining images of the elbow flexors from an ultrasound image device with 88 normal subjects whose ages were between twenty and seventy years old (44 men and 44 women), muscular density and white area index (WAI) which indicated structural characteristics of skeletal muscle were analyzed with gray scale analysis. The study examined correlations between subject's age and items which obtained from measuring ultrasound images and the differences in relations to sex and age. Muscular density and WAI had a high correlation with age and were significantly increased in men and women with greater age. The quantitative evaluation method of skeletal muscle structure which analyzed the ultrasound images has high practicality because it is a non-invasive method which complements physical therapy diagnosis and research methods and promotes functionality evaluation.

Acoustical imaging has made brilliant progress in the medical science field, and has also made much progress in the nondestructive testing and under water acoustics applications since doctor Dussik brother has studied about possibilities of making images of brain by recording variations in the intensity of ultrasonic beam from head in 1937. In this paper an acoustical image is reconstructed with the power spectra analysed by impulse ultrasound wave generated by electrodynamic transducer(EDT). The EDT generates the impulse ultrasound of 77KHz in center frequency and 120KHz in bandwidth at -20dB by 1200V exciter in this experiment. The impulse ultrasound has the dominant frequency components of 47KHz, 177KHz, 110KHz and 155KHz. The U shape object is adopted in making an acoustical image. The resulted spectral acoustical images are different from the optical view of the U shape object. However the image reconstructed from 110KHz spectrum is very similar to the original optical shape of the object. Even KHz level impulse sound of 70μsec pulse width is found to be useful in reconstructing acoustical imaging improvement.

In this paper, we introduce a robot-assisted medical diagnostic system that enables remote ultrasound (US) imaging to be applied to the conventional telemedicine, which has been possible only with interviewing or a visual exam. In particular, a master-slave robot system is developed that ultrasonic diagnosis specialist can control the position and orientation of US probe in the remote place. The slave robot is designed to be compact, lightweight, and hand-held so that it can easily transfer to the remote healthcare center. Moreover, 6-degree-of-freedom (DOF) probe motion is possible by the robot design based on Stewart platform. The master device is also based on a similar structure of the slave robot. To connect master and slave system in the wide area network (WAN) environment, a hardware CODEC was developed. In this paper, we introduce the detail of each component and the results of the recent experiments conducted in the remote sites by the developed robotic ultrasound imaging system.

만성간질환(Chronic diffuse hepatopathy)의 진단은 간경화, 간부전, 간암으로 인한 사망률과 유병율을 감소 시키는 중요한 임상과제 중 하나이다. 이에 본 연구에서는 초음파진단 영상을 바탕으로 간탄력도검사(Fibro scan)를 통해 지방간, 만성간질환을 예측할 수 있는 기준을 알아보고자 하였다. 280명의 환자를 대상으로 혈청학적 검사, 간탄력도 검사 측정값(kPa)을 분석하였으며 ROC 곡선분석을 이용하여 지방간 및 만성간질 환을 예측을 위한 간탄력도 측정값의 cut-off value를 결정하였다. 혈청학적 검사에서 Bililubin, PT(prothromb in time)은 질병예측에 관련성이 없었으며(p=0.243, p=0.115), 혈당과 중성지방수치는 지방간에서 의미 있는 차이를 보이며 높게 나타났다(p<0.05). 간탄력도 측정값은 정상 대조군, 지방간, 만성간질환 순으로 높게 측 정되었으며 만성간질환 예측을 위한 cut-off value는 10.3 kPa(AUC 0.98, Sensitivity 94.94%, Specificity 94.9 3%)로 결정하였다. 따라서 정량적인 평가로 만성간질환 환자의 진단에 일차적인 도구로 활용될 것으로 사 료된다.

본 연구는 영상의 노이즈 감소를 위한 복합필터 제안과 간 초음파영상에서 노이즈 제거를 통한 영상품질의 향상으로 정확한 영상 해석에 도움을 주고자 하였다. 실험은 ATS-539 다목적용 초음파팬텀을 이용하여 Gaussian blurring filter, Sharpening filter, Median filter의 조합으로 상위 7개의 복합필터를 선정하고 이를 간 초음파영상에 적용하였다. 그 결과 상위 7개 복합필터 적용하였을 때 SNR, CNR, MSR 값이 모두 증가하는 것으로 나타났다. 이 중 복합필터 1과 2가 가장 높은 값을 나타내었다. 또한 PSNR 30 dB이상, SSIM 1에 가까운 결과값을 나타내어 영상의 손실률이 적음을 알 수 있었다. 따라서 본 연구에서 제안한 복합필터의 적절한 적용은 정확한 영상의 판독과 해석에 도움을 줄 수 있을 것이다.

초음파 장비는 여러 질환을 진단하는 장비로서 널리 사용되고 있으나, 초음파영상 품질의 평가방법에서 는 정량적 표준이 없는 실정이다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 ATS-539 다목적 팬텀 내 8 mm 표적의 파라미터로 서 주파수, Dynamic range, 초점수를 변화하여 예민도의 SNR과 영상의 히스토그램을 분석하고 왜곡도를 측 정하여 표적별 적합한 주파수 및 파라미터를 도출하여 초음파영상의 병변 진단율을 향상 하고자 한다. 실 험재료는 초음파 장비, ATS-539 다목적 팬텀을 사용하며, 실험방법은 영상 평가 팬텀의 8 mm를 주파수(2, 3, 4 MHz, 하모닉 3, 4, 4.5 MHz), Dynamic range(58, 68, 78, 88, 98), Focus(2, 4, 6개)를 변화시키면서 85장의 영상을 획득한다. 8 mm 영상의 예민도를 Image J 프로그램에서 각 표적별 SNR을 측정하고, 왜곡도는 신호 의 히스토그램에서 백그라운드 값을 뺄셈하여 측정한다. 측정 결과 값에서 상위 40% 결과에서 파라미터 변화에 따라 예민도의 SNR, 왜곡도의 변화양상의 데이터 값을 산출하여 초음파 장비에서 적절한 영상의 품질을 나타내는 파라미터를 도출하였다. 결과는 초점수가 증가하면 SNR이 높고 왜곡도가 감소하며, 주파 수 4 MHz에서 SNR값이 높고 왜곡도가 감소하였다. 그리고 Dynamic range 88, 98에서 최적의 영상을 나타 내었으며, 실험 결과값을 기초로 초음파영상의 품질을 평가한다면 보다 정확한 초음파 진단이 가능할 것으 로 사료된다.

본 연구에서는 술자의 주관적인 판단에 의존하고 있는 질환 여부의 판정을 객관적이고 과학적인 방법으로 판정하기 위한 방안을 제안하였다. 제안된 방법에서는 간세포암 환자를 추적관찰 한 초음파영상을 MSE(Mean Squared Error: 평균제곱오차)를 구한 후 PSNR(Peak Signal to Noise Ratio)분석을 하였다. 분석한 결과 시간이 지남에 따라 MSE값과 PSNR값이 변화함을 알 수 있었다. 이러한 이유는 간세포암이 진행됨에 따라 초음파 에코의 증가로 초음파영상의 변화에 기인하는 것이다. 본 논문의 결과는 술자의 주관적인 판단에 의하여 행해지고 있는 초음파 검사를 과학적이고 객관적인 판정을 할 수 있는 방법으로 활용될 수 있을 것이다.