Edited by Reiner Salzer, Wiley 2012. ISBN: 978-0-470-64847-6. xix + 423 pages, US$125.00 (hardback).
This one-editor, 28-author, 12-chapter book provides a very good start-up guide for students, researchers, and clinicians looking for quick guidance on the technical fundamentals, molecular background, evaluation procedures, and clinical applications of well-established medical imaging modalities as well as newly emerging technologies using light or sound.
This book can be divided into three well-separated parts. The first section (the two first chapters) provides an overview of the existing methods and tools for visualization and highlights some of their limitations and challenges. The second section (five chapters) describes the technology and applications of imaging modalities such as X-ray imaging, computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and tracer imaging. The third section (five chapters) deals with imaging technologies using light or sound, such as fluorescence imaging, infrared and Raman imaging, biomedical sonography, and acoustic microscopy.
As an overview of the text, we list the chapters and provide a brief description of each:
- Chapter 1, “Evaluation of Spectroscopic Images” (29 pages, 80 references), explains the application of a chemometric approach based on a similarity measure—between the data obtained from a patient and reference data—to facilitate the analysis of image data.
- Chapter 2, “Evaluation of Tomographic Data” (33 pages, 17 references), provides an overview of the main problems one faces when evaluating tomographic data, with a special focus on the analysis of the image data.
- Chapter 3, “X-Ray Imaging” (34 pages, 17 references), is devoted to instrumentation and clinical applications of X-ray imaging, with a very short introduction to the physical principles of X-ray imaging.
- Chapter 4, “Computed Tomography” (34 pages, 59 references), briefly presents the basic physics and image reconstruction on CT and a well-written and well-presented section on CT instrumentation and measurement techniques, finishing with some CT clinical applications.
- Chapter 5, “Magnetic Resonance Technology” (49 pages, 79 references), presents the physical principles of image creation and reconstruction and explains some important concepts such as image resolution, noise in the image, image weighting, and pulse sequence parameters of MRI. Afterward, it introduces some MRI applications, such as magnetic resonance angiography, perfusion MRI, molecular MRI, and functional MRI. It also briefly describes MR spectroscopy, MR hardware, and MR safety and finishes the chapter with a section related to imaging artefacts in MRI.
- Chapter 6, “Toward a 3D View of Cellular Architecture: Correlative Light Microscopy and Electron Tomography” (35 pages, 150 references), discusses the past, present, and prospective strategies for correlative light and electron microscopy, with a special emphasis on three-dimensional imaging methods, in particular electron tomography.
- Chapter 7, “Tracer Imaging” (33 pages, 46 references), provides an overview of single-photon emission computed tomography and positron emission tomography imaging, starting with tracer imaging instrumentation (isotope production and radiolabeling strategies) and continuing with a description of measurement techniques and applications.
- Chapter 8, “Fluorescence Imaging” (27 pages, 97 references), reviews the contrast mechanisms used in optical and fluorescence imaging, briefly discussing the optical properties of biological tissues in the visible and near-infrared radiation spectrum range and explaining their role in light propagation and imaging. It also presents current microscopic and macroscopic imaging methods for fluorescence imaging as well as some of the most important applications.
- Chapter 9, “Infrared and Raman Spectroscopic Imaging” (29 pages, 37 references), describes the new imaging techniques based on vibrational spectroscopy that have a clear potential in medical diagnostics when rapid and objective detection of complex samples is required.
- Chapter 10, “Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering Microscopy” (27 pages, 61 references), explains in great detail this novel microscopic technique known as coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering microscopy where image contrast is given by the vibrational properties of molecules, highly dependent on the participating atoms, the character of the bond, the physical state of the molecule, and its environment, allowing for true chemical imaging.
- Chapter 11, “Biomedical Sonography” (37 pages, 46 references), is devoted to one of the most important diagnostic imaging modalities, which relies on the propagation of mechanical waves (with frequencies beyond the audible range) into the body, the reflection and scattering of sound by tissue structures, and the registration of the echoes. Finally,
- Chapter 12, “Acoustic Microscopy for Biomedical Applications” (47 pages, 124 references), describes how acoustic microscopy can provide unique information on the shape and mechanical properties of an object at a microscopic level. Following these 12 chapters, we have the index (nine pages).
Overall, this book clearly achieves its aim as an excellent guide for those wishing to combine different imaging technologies for problem solving and is recommended as a reference for students and engineers who need to understand the biomedical basis of their data.