ABSTRACT

Medical imaging plays a crucial role in modern medicine and image data are found in a wide variety of clinical specialties. Planar x-ray and fluoroscopy data are acquired for routine diagnostics in chest imaging, for guidance and diagnosis in cardiac interventions, and for monitoring intraoperative progress during surgical procedures. Computed x-ray tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, both being 3D imaging modalities, are among the most important diagnostic tools in hospitals around the world. Ultrasound and endoscopy provide direct insight into the body in real-time, and nuclear medicine allows to monitor function and metabolism where pathological changes in anatomy are not yet visible. Besides the broad impact of radiological techniques in diagnosis and therapy, molecular imaging – an umbrella term for a number of imaging methods – has become a vital tool in basic biomedical research and drug development. This course introduces the basic techniques for handling those images. Some knowledge about the basic physics of the imaging modalities used is nevertheless inevitable. In this chapter, an overview of radiological imaging physics is given. You may use this chapter as a refresher, or as a starting point for more intense studies in medical imaging physics.