Description

Preface

This book explains the applied mathematical and

physical principles of medical imaging and image pro-
cessing. It gives a complete survey, accompanied by

more than 300 illustrations in color, of how medical
images are obtained and how they can be used for
diagnosis, therapy, and surgery.
It has been written principally as a course text on
medical imaging intended for graduate and final-year
undergraduate students with a background in physics,
mathematics, or engineering. However, I have made
an effort to make the textbook readable for biomedical

scientists and medical practitioners as well by delet-
ing unnecessary mathematical details, without giving

up the depth needed for physicists and engineers.

Mathematical proofs are highlighted in separate para-
graphs and can be skipped without hampering a fluent

reading of the text.
Although a large proportion of the book covers
the physical principles of imaging modalities, the
emphasis is always on how the image is computed.

Equipment design, clinical considerations, and diag-
nosis are treated in less detail. Premature techniques

or topics under investigation have been omitted.
Presently, books on medical imaging fall into two

groups, neither of which is suitable for this read-
ership. The first group is the larger and comprises

books directed primarily at the less numerate pro-
fessions such as physicians, surgeons, and radiologic

technicians. These books cover the physics and mathe-
matics of all the major medical imaging modalities, but

mostly in a superficial way. They do not allow any real

understanding of these imaging modalities. The sec-
ond group comprises books suitable for professional

medical physicists or researchers with expertise in the
field. Although these books have a numerate approach,
they tend to cover the topics too deeply for the
beginner and to have a narrower scope than this book.
The text reflects what I teach in class, but there is
somewhat more material than I can cover in a module
of 30 contact hours. This means that there is scope for

the stronger student to read around the subject and
also makes the book a useful purchase for those going
on to do research.

In Chapter 1, an introduction to digital image pro-
cessing is given. It summarizes the jargon used by

the digital image community, the components defin-
ing image quality, and basic image operations used

to process digital images. The theory of linear sys-
tems, described in Chapter 2 of the first edition, has

been moved to an appendix. It is too high-level for

the medical reader and a significant part of the engi-
neering readers of the previous edition considered it

as redundant. However, many students in physics or
engineering are not familiar with linear system theory
and will welcome this appendix.
Chapters 2–6 explain how medical images are
obtained. The most important imaging modalities

today are discussed: radiography, computed tomogra-
phy, magnetic resonance imaging, nuclear medicine

imaging, and ultrasonic imaging. Each chapter
includes (1) a short history of the imaging modality,

(2) the theory of the physics of the signal and its inter-
action with tissue, (3) the image formation or recon-
struction process, (4) a discussion of the image quality,

(5) the different types of equipment in use today, (6)
examples of the clinical use of the modality, (7) a brief
description of the biologic effects and safety issues, and
(8) some future expectations. The imaging modalities
have made an impressive evolution in a short time with
respect to quality, size and applicability. This part of
the book provides up-to-date information about these
systems.
Chapters 7 and 8 deal with image analysis and
visualization for diagnosis, therapy and surgery once
images are available. Medical images can, for example,
be analyzed to obtain quantitative data, or they can
be displayed in three dimensions and actively used

to guide a surgical intervention. Most courses sepa-
rate the imaging theory from the postprocessing, but

I strongly believe that they should be taken together