Medical Imaging
Techniques
Dr. K. Adalarasu
KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University
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Textbook and Materials
Rafael C. Gonzalez, Richard E. Woods,
“Digital Image Processing”, 2nd Edition,
Pearson Education, 2003
Digital Image Processing by Jayaraman,
Veerakumar, 2012
Khandpur R.S, Handbook of Biomedical
Instrumentation, 3/e, Tata McGraw
Hill,New Delhi, 2014
KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University
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Reference
William K. Pratt, “Digital Image Processing” ,
John Willey ,2001
Steve Webb, The physics of medical imaging,
Adam Hilger, Bristol, England, Philadelphia,
USA, 1988
Jain A.K., “Fundamentals of Digital Image
Processing”, PHI, 1995.
KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University
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Magnetic Resonance
(MR)
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Basic MRI Components
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Basic MRI Components
A magnet
Which provides a strong uniform, steady, magnet
field B0
An RF transmitter
Which delivers radio-frequency magnetic field to
the sample
A gradient system
Which produces time-varying magnetic fields of
controlled spatial non-uniformity
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Basic MRI Components
A detection system
Which yields the output signal
An imager system
Including the computer, which reconstructs and
displays the images.
KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University
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Basic MRI Components
Sub-systems of a
typical NMR
imaging system
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Basic MRI Components
Voltage waveforms for the gradient magnetic fields
are all under software control
Computer
Various data processing tasks including the Fourier
transformation, image reconstruction, data filtering, image
display and storage
KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University
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Basic MRI Components
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Basic MRI Components
Magnet
Base field must be extremely uniform in space and constant
in time
Its purpose is to align the nuclear magnets parallel to each other in
the volume to be examined
SNR increases approximately linearly with the magnetic field
strength of the basic field
It must be as large as possible
Four factors characterize the performance of the
magnets used in MR systems
Field strength
Temporal Stability
Homogeneity
Bore size
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Magnet
Temporal stability is important
Since instabilities of the field adversely affect resolution.
Gross non-homogeneities result in image distortion
While the bore diameter limits the size of the dimension
of the specimen that can be imaged
Magnetic field can be produced by means of four
different ways
Permanent magnets
Electromagnets
Resistive magnets
Super-conducting magnets
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Magnet
Permanent magnet
Patient is placed in the gap between a pair of
permanently magnetized pole faces
Permanent magnet materials
High carbon iron alloys such as alnico or neodymium iron
(alloy of neodymium, boron and iron)
Ceramics such as barium ferrite
Advantages of producing a relatively small fringing
field and do not require power supplies
Produce relatively low fields of the order of 0.3 T or
less
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Magnet
Electromagnets
Make use of soft magnetic materials such as pole
faces
Which become magnetized only when electric
current is passed through the coils wound around
them
Require external electrical power supply
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Magnet
Resistive magnets
Use of large current-carrying coils of aluminium
strips or copper tubes
Electrical power requirement increases
proportionately to the square of the field strength
Which becomes prohibitively high as the field strength
increases
Total power in the coils is converted into heat
which must be dissipated by liquid cooling
0.2 T, the power requirement is nearly 70 kW
Used except for very low field strength
applications, generally limited to 0.02 to 0.06 T
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Magnet
Modern NMR machines utilize
superconductive magnets
Which lose their electrical resistance fully below a
specific temperature
Commonly used superconducting material is Nb
Ti (Niobium Titanium) alloy
Which the transition temperature lies at 9 K (–264°C)
Superconductive magnet coils are cooled with
liquid helium
Which boils at a temperature of 4.2 K (–269°C)
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Magnet
Superconductive magnets
Helium container with its superconductive
windings is enclosed in a vacuum
To keep the evaporation rate low
Internal shields cooled with liquid nitrogen prevent
heating due to radiated heat passing through the
vacuum vessel
Connection to a current supply is only necessary
for energizing up to the required field strength
After this, the coils are short-circuited and require
no further electrical energy
Magnetic field is temporarily stable
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Magnet - Superconductive Magnets
Due to evaporation of the liquid helium and liquid
nitrogen
Monthly topping of helium
Weekly topping of nitrogen is necessary
Evaporation rate in the earlier scanners
About 0.5 l/h for liquid helium
2 l/h for liquid nitrogen
Make use of cryogenic refrigerators that reduce or
eliminate the need for refilling the liquid helium
reservoir
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Magnet - Superconductive Magnets
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Magnet - Superconductive Magnets
Superconducting magnets have become the most widely
used and preferred source of the main magnetic fields for
MRI scanners
Produced for field strengths of up to 2 T
1.5 T magnetic field, the current required by the
superconducting coils is of the order of 200 amp
Diameter of the coils is about 1.3 m and total length of the
wire could be 65 kms
A field strength of 0.5 T means that a nuclear resonance
frequency of 21.3 MHz is required for protons
A field strength of 2 T means that 85.2 MHz is needed
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Magnet
NMR imaging systems usually incorporate magnets with a
maximum flux density of 0.5 T to 1.5 T
In the system of international units (SI units), the ‘Tesla’ (T) is
the unit of magnetic flux density
In some countries, the unit ‘Gauss’ (G) is also used
For conversion 1 T=10,000 G = 10 kG
Image quality of NMR scans depends upon
Uniformity of the static magnetic field
On its stability over a long period of time
Short periods
Uniformity of this magnet must be at least 20 ppm
Stability at a level of 2 ppm
Long periods
10ppm
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RF Transmitter System
Transmitter Function
To activate the nuclei
So that they emit a useful signal
Energy must be transmitted into the sample
Element
RF transmitter
RF power amplifier
RF transmitting coils
RF transmitter
RF crystal oscillator at the Larmor frequency
To generate RF pulses that excite the resonance
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RF Transmitter System
RF power amplifier
Pulses are amplified to levels varying from 100 W
to several kW depending on the imaging method
Fed to the transmitter coil
RF coils
Either a single coil serving as both transmitter and
receiver or
Two separate coils that are electrically orthogonal
In both cases, all coils generate RF fields
orthogonal to the direction of the main magnetic
field
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RF Transmitter System
Saddle-and solenoidal-shaped RF coils are typical geometries
for the RF coils
Magnetic fields in the range of 0.05 to 2 T used for imaging of
the human body
Resonant frequencies fall in the radio-frequency band
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RF Transmitter System
Example, in a field of 1 T
1H resonates at 42.57 MHz
19F at 40.05 MHz
31P at 17.24 MHz
13C at l0.71 MHz
Resonance is extremely sharp
Widths in the range of 10 Hz are typical of biological
systems
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Detection System
Function
To detect the nuclear magnetization and generate an output signal for
processing by the computer
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Detection System
Receiver coil usually surrounds the sample
Acts as an antenna to pick up the fluctuating nuclear
magnetization of the sample
Converts it to a fluctuating output voltage V(t)
Where
M(t, x) is the total magnetization in a volume
Bc(x) -sensitivity of the receiver coil at different points in
space
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