2025-1

Medical Imaging
Radiography, CT and Nuclear Medicine,
MRI and Ultrasound
(Background for experiments)

CHANSUN PARK
Korea University
 Medical Imaging
v Technique to create in-vivo images of a living subject
(human) for clinical purposes or medical science.

US
PET/SPECT

MRI X-ray CT

Optical 2
 Functions of Medical Imaging
Anatomy

Structural Info
Physiology

Functional Info
Molecular

Molecular Pathways

E.g. Bone, soft tissue, etc

E.g. Blood flow, oxygen

consumption, etc
E.g. Neurotransmitter,
antibody, etc 3
Functions of Medical Imaging
Instruments
Anatomy Physiology Molecular

X-ray CT

US

MRI

PET
(SPECT)
Optical

4
 Different Images Tests
Modality What for What to expect Diagnose
X-ray Image of body structure, Depends on different Bone fracture, infections,
bone patient’s position (PA, breast cancer, arthritis,
AP, …) osteoporosis
CT Cross-sections of the inside Lie on the couch(table), Bone fracture, tumor and
of the body, bones, blood rotating around patient cancer, heart disease, vascular
vessel, soft tissue disease
MRI Images of organs and tissue Lie on the couch(table), Aneurysm, stroke, spinal cord
in the body deeper and narrower disorder, tumor, blood vessel
than CT tissue, joint and tendon injury
Ultrasound Images of organs and With a small probe and Gallbladder disease, genital,
structure in the body gel to the patient’s skin pregnancy, prostate, breast
lumps
PET/SPECT Tracing organs active to Radiotracer, Cancer, heart disease,
tracers radiation(gamma) Alzheimer’s disease, Parkin’s
disease, seizures, coronary
artery disease, epilepsy

5
d
Flat panel detectors
 X-ray CT system

X-ray counter
X-ray tube

Camera

Phosphor screen Camera

Some concepts relevant to class
 Magnification

The position of the tube, object and imager will

influence how the structures appear on the image.
 Magnification ratio

 −  −     ( )

•  =
 −  −   ( )

– SOD: difficult to measure accurately,

usually an estimated value
 Artifacts

• Beam hardening (cupping artifact)

Computed Tomography (CT)
 Image reconstruction

• Projection and Backprojection

Projection Backprojection
X-ray detector

X-ray source
Image reconstruction (Data acquisition in CT)
 Image reconstruction (Concept of CT)

・Getting the shape by back projection of the projection data.

・For example, outward view is the quadrangle => it is the cylinder

CT
Algorithm
 Image reconstruction
(Basic principle-backprojection)

Projection Data curvilinear integral of absorption coefficient regarding Y

y y

object x x

X-ray
tube
Data Acquisition field Reconstruction field

Simple Backprojection
 Image reconstruction
(Filtered backprojection)

1 projection 4 projection 30 projection 60 projection

180 projection

Original
Shepp-Logan phantom
 Nuclear Medicine
(Gamma ray detection)
 Radiology vs. Nuclear Medicine

• Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

• Gamma camera

• Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography

(SPECT)
 Radiology vs. Nuclear Medicine

X-ray vs. Nuclear imaging

External Radiation Source

Internal Radiation Source

Detector Detector
 Positron Emission Tomography

A molecular imaging technique which produces a 3-D

map of functional processes in the body

PET image MRI image

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 How PET Works

Front-End
electronics
Fluorodeoxyglucose
(FDG)

Data acquisition
and Reconstruction
Time window
(ex. 12 ns) Cancer

time

Front-End
electronics
27
 PET Scanner

Parkinson’s
Normal disease

GE advance 28
 PET and CT image

CT = Anatomic Structure PET = Molecular Activity

Lesion Lesion
Metastasis

Cancer
Cancer ?

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Nuclear Medicine
(Gamma camera)
 Gamma Camera

• Uses single photon emitting radioisotopes

• Radionuclides used in nuclear medicine typically
have half-lives on the order of hours or days.
Some concepts relevant to class
 Types of Radiation Detectors

• Classification by the detection method

– Gas-filled detector
– Scintillator based detector
– Semiconductor detector
 Scintillation Detector

Light +

Current Pulse

Radiation

Anode
Scintillation Crystal Photocathode

Optical Window

• When ionizing radiation interacts with a scintillator,

electrons are raised to an excited energy level.
• These electrons fall back to a lower energy state,
with the emission of visible or ultraviolet light.
 Photodetector

PMT è Semiconductor photodetector (SiPM)

v Silicon Photomultiplier
- high gain, fast, compact, non-magnetic, etc

36
 Energy spectrum and energy resolution

• Energy resolution
Positioning (E.g. of an array Detector)
 Flood Map of an array detector
• The flood map is a density plot of the
Anger arithmetic positions
Flood Map with Arale Gamma camera
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
 MRI
(How to get a signal/image?)
 (Free induction decay)

Spin-lattice relaxation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKp67IqQjH4&index=1&list=PL40F1EE0DF59D777A
 Spin-Spin Relaxation (T2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is8TscwFOvM
+ Shim coil to remove in homogeneities in field
 T2 signal acquisition

http://youtu.be/yKmEbCPV4Cg
Other sequences: gradient echo, etc… (hundreds of sequences)
Ultrasound Imaging
Ultrasound
Bats navigate using ultrasound
Bats: Navigating with ultrasound
• If a bat hears an echo 0.01 second after it makes a
chirp, how far away is the object?
• Clue 1: the speed of sound in air is 330 ms-1
• Clue 2: The speed of sound equals the distance
travelled divided by the time taken

• Answer: distance = speed x time

• Put the numbers in:

distance = 330 x 0.01 = 3.3 m
• But this is the distance from the bat to the object and
back again, so the distance to the object is 1.65 m.
Frequency:
• Human audible range: 20 - 20 kHz

• 20 - 100 kHz: Used by bats and dophins

• 1 - 20 Mhz: For medical purpose

How is ultrasound produced and detected?

Quartz etc
Ultrasound imaging: How does it work?

• An ultrasound element acts like a bat.

• Emit ultrasound and detect echoes
• Map out boundary of object
Ultrasound imaging: How does it work?

• Now put many elements together to make a probe and

create an image
Ultrasound imaging: development of a pregnancy

24 weeks

8 weeks gestation (out of a 40 week pregnancy)

18 weeks
 Ultrasound imaging: foetus feet

This is a 2D ultrasound scan We can process the image in a

through the foot of a foetus. You can computer to find the outline of the foot.
see some of the bones of the foot. This is called surface rendering. Here,
the foot has been surface rendered
Ultrasound imaging: more surface rendering
Doppler Ultrasound : Blood flow
Ultrasound imaging principle
Ultrasound Transducers (Types I)
Also called 2D mode
time