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Background/purpose: To study steerable microcatheter (SM) use in moderate and highly difficult vessel selection compared to conventional pre-shaped microcatheter (CM) use. Material and methods: An IRB approved, single institution analysis of 40 complex angiographic procedures with and without superselective microcatheter use during an eight-month period in 2017 was performed. Target vessels were deemed moderate or highly difficult to select based on vessel size, tortuosity, and/or angulation during nonselective initial angiography. Data collected included type of microcatheter used (SM or CM), number of microcatheters and microwires used, procedure time, radiation exposure index (dose area product/DAP), target vessel location, and time to target vessel selection (TTVS; time from device placement to vessel selection). Comparison between the SM and CM groups was performed using Wilcoxon test. Results: A SM (SwiftNinja, Merit Medical, South Jordan, UT, USA) was used to select 46 vessels in 20 patients. One or more CMs were used in 20 patients to select 34 vessels. Median TTVS, number of microwires used, total procedure time, and DAP (microGray. m 2) were 12 vs. 462.5 s (p < 0.0001), 0 vs. 2 (p < 0.001), and 26,948 vs. 30,904 (p = 0.15) in the SM vs. CM groups, respectively. When adjusted for body mass index (BMI) using a linear model for radiation exposure, patients in the SM group had lower radiation exposure than those in the CM group (p = 0.05). Conclusions: Utilization of a steerable microcatheter, without or with a guidewire, leads to easier and faster target vessel selection with shorter procedure times in complex vessel anatomy.

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This study was to identify the material characteristics and provenance of the Joseon (the 15th to 17th century) potteries from Ssangyongdong Yongam site in Cheonan. The pottery samples of the kilns and the workshops (habitation) from the study area have grey or red color with similar matrix but various shapes and different hardness, according to firing temperature. All of the pottery and the workshop soils were very similar patterns with characteristics of occurrences, mineralogy and geochemical evolution trend. But soils from around the site does not correspond with them. So the workshop soil that the fine clay is raw clay for making pottery in Yongam site. Firing temperature of soft-type potteries were presumed to be formed around 900℃ based on phase transition of clay minerals and mica. Hard-type pottery, mullite was detected and plagioclase was not detected by X-ray diffraction analysis, which means that potteries had experienced firing between 1,000 to 1,100℃.