Search

Alcoholic and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is one of the leading causes of chronic liver diseases and mortality in Western countries and Asia. Ultrasound image assessment is most commonly and widely used to identify the Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). It is one of the faster and safer non-invasive methods of NAFLD diagnosis available in imaging modalities. The diagnosis of NAFLD using biopsies is expensive, invasive, and causes anxiety to the patients. The advent of advanced image processing and data mining techniques have helped to develop faster, efficient, objective, and accurate decision support system for fatty liver disease using ultrasound images. This paper proposes a novel feature extraction models based on Radon Transform (RT) and Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT). First, Radon Transform (RT) is performed on the ultrasound images for every 1 degree to capture the low frequency details. Then 2D-DCT is applied on the Radon transformed image to obtain the frequency features (DCT coefficients). Further the 2D-DCT frequency coefficients (features) obtained are converted to 1D coefficients vector in zigzag fashion. This 1D array of DCT coefficients are subjected to Locality Sensitive Discriminant Analysis (LSDA) to reduce the number of features. Then these features are ranked using minimum Redundancy and Maximum Relevance (mRMR) ranking method. Finally, highly ranked minimum numbers of features are fused using Decision Tree (DT), k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN), Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Fuzzy Sugeno (FS) and AdaBoost classifiers to get the highest classification performance. In this work, we have obtained an average accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 100% in the detection of NAFLD using FS classifier. Also, we have devised an integrated index named as Fatty Liver Disease Index (FLDI) by fusing two significant LSDA components to distinguish normal and FLD class with single number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly gaining recognition in the radiology domain as a greater number of radiologists are becoming AI-literate. However, the adoption and implementation of AI solutions in clinical settings have been slow, with points of contention. A group of AI users comprising mainly clinical radiologists across various Asian countries, including India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Uzbekistan, formed the working group. This study aimed to draft position statements regarding the application and clinical deployment of AI in radiology. The primary aim is to raise awareness among the general public, promote professional interest and discussion, clarify ethical considerations when implementing AI technology, and engage the radiology profession in the ever-changing clinical practice. These position statements highlight pertinent issues that need to be addressed between care providers and care recipients. More importantly, this will help legalize the use of non-human instruments in clinical deployment without compromising ethical considerations, decision-making precision, and clinical professional standards. We base our study on four main principles of medical care-respect for patient autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice., Competing Interests: The authors have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 The Korean Society of Radiology.)

More than half of the world's population live in Asia-Pacific. This region is culturally diverse, with significant disparities in terms of socio-economic status, provision of health care and access to advanced technology. The medical use of ionising radiation is increasing worldwide and similarly within the Asia-Pacific region. In this paper, we highlight the current status in usage of ionising radiation in medicine in the region, and review the legal framework, implementation and activities in radiation protection. Asia-Pacific countries are active in strengthening radiation protection by promoting education and training. Various projects and activities initiated by international organisations such as the IAEA, WHO and ICRP have provided stimulation in the region, but more work is needed to continue to improve protection practices., (© 2021 The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists.)

Objective: To understand the status of pre-procedural safety practices in radiological examinations at radiology residency training institutions in various Asian regions., Methods: A questionnaire based on the Joint Commission International Accreditation Standards was electronically sent to 3 institutions each in 10 geographical regions across 9 Asian countries. Questions addressing 45 practices were divided into 3 categories. A five-tier scale with numerical scores was used to evaluate safety practices in each institution. Responses obtained from three institutions in the United States were used to validate the execution rate of each surveyed safety practice., Results: The institutional response rate was 70.0% (7 Asian regions, 21 institutions). 44 practices (all those surveyed except for the application of wrist tags for identifying patients with fall risks) were validated using the US participants. Overall, the Asian participants reached a consensus on 89% of the safety practices. Comparatively, most Asian participants did not routinely perform three pre-procedural practices in the examination appropriateness topic., Conclusion: Based on the responses from 21 participating Asian institutions, most routinely perform standard practices during radiological examinations except when it comes to examination appropriateness. This study can provide direction for safety policymakers scrutinizing and improving regional standards of care., Advances in Knowledge: This is the first multicenter survey study to elucidate pre-procedural safety practices in radiological examinations in seven Asian regions.

The increased use of medical imaging and radiation therapies has resulted in a high demand for medical physicists. Although medical physics programmes are well established in advanced countries, the same cannot be said for many low- and medium-income countries. In some countries, there may be huge variations in the graduates' skill and quality, which pose a problem in ensuring patient safety, providing quality assurance in treatments, optimisation of protocols and standardisation of quality. It also makes any yet-to-be-established regional peer recognition efforts problematic. In order to understand the depth of this problem, a survey was carried out as part of the home-based assignment under the RAS 6088 IAEA programme. A large diversity in terms of course content, duration, clinical training and student profile could be observed across the Asia-Oceania universities surveyed. Out of 25 programmes, only six received recognition from professional bodies, and they were mostly in Australia and New Zealand. Hence, to ensure quality education, a regional curriculum model needs to be developed to harmonise standards. And there is still a long way to go towards standardizing medical physics education and clinical training in the region., (Copyright © 2019 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: To investigate: (1) the variability of mammographic compression parameters amongst Asian women; and (2) the effects of reducing compression force on image quality and mean glandular dose (MGD) in Asian women based on phantom study., Methods: We retrospectively collected 15818 raw digital mammograms from 3772 Asian women aged 35-80 years who underwent screening or diagnostic mammography between Jan 2012 and Dec 2014 at our center. The mammograms were processed using a volumetric breast density (VBD) measurement software (Volpara) to assess compression force, compression pressure, compressed breast thickness (CBT), breast volume, VBD and MGD against breast contact area. The effects of reducing compression force on image quality and MGD were also evaluated based on measurement obtained from 105 Asian women, as well as using the RMI156 Mammographic Accreditation Phantom and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) slabs., Results: Compression force, compression pressure, CBT, breast volume, VBD and MGD correlated significantly with breast contact area (p<0.0001). Compression parameters including compression force, compression pressure, CBT and breast contact area were widely variable between [relative standard deviation (RSD)≥21.0%] and within (p<0.0001) Asian women. The median compression force should be about 8.1 daN compared to the current 12.0 daN. Decreasing compression force from 12.0 daN to 9.0 daN increased CBT by 3.3±1.4 mm, MGD by 6.2-11.0%, and caused no significant effects on image quality (p>0.05)., Conclusions: Force-standardized protocol led to widely variable compression parameters in Asian women. Based on phantom study, it is feasible to reduce compression force up to 32.5% with minimal effects on image quality and MGD.