HST 565 Course Lectures

Medical Imaging Sciences and Applications

HST.565; Tue-Thu 4:30-6:00; Room 56-162

Course Director: Georges El Fakhri, PhD

2016 Course Associate Directors: Moses Wilks, PhD & Alvin Ihsani, PhD

Video lectures:

Course Associate Director: Marc Normandin, PhD
Faculty: Nathaniel Alpert, PhD, Quanzheng Li, PhD, Jinsong Ouyang, PhD, Ruth Lim, MD
TAs: Chuan Huang PhD, Junguo Bian PhD

Recommended Textbooks

  • [SC12] Simon Cherry, Physics in Nuclear Medicine, 2012
  • [MW04] Miles Wernick, Emission Tomography: The Fundamentals of PET and SPECT, 2004
  • [HZ06] Habib Zaidi, Quantitative Analysis in Nuclear Medicine

Click on a lecture to view video

Week Description/Link to Video Details and Suggested Literature
Week 1 Introduction to Molecular Imaging;
Sensitivity and Resolution in Molecular Imaging Modalities
Image Quality, Estimation and Detection Tasks in Medical Imaging		 Types of imaging modalities used in medicine
(MRI, US, PET, SPECT, CT) with an overview of the applications
in medical imaging and how they complement each other
[SC12] Chp. 1, 15
Week 2 Basics of Cyclotron, Radiochemistry & Radiopharmacy
Particle interactions; Radioactive Decay		 Tthe basics of nuclear physics,
and implications from exposure to radiation.
[SC12] Chp. 3, 4, 6
Week 2 Radiation detectors; Counting statistics; Dose & Exposure Covers the physics of radiation detection and different types of detectors (gas, semiconductors and scintillators),
as well as the basics of counting statistics.
Also covers types of radiation detector systems (PMT, monolithic crystals, solid state, pixelated crystals) and their applications to imaging systems, event positioning algorithms (advantages and disadvantages, and possibility for improvement), how the physical properties and (mechanical) design of crystals provides potential for the improvement of image quality.
[SC12] Chp. 13, 14
Week 3 Gamma Camera
Tomographic Reconstruction I		 Transmission tomography imaging, such as the mathematics of computed tomography (parallel, fan-beam, and cone-beam integral transforms), analytic reconstruction algorithms (FPB, FBP, etc.).
[SC12] Chp. 13, 14
Week 4 Problem Set I
Introduction to Tomographic Imaging		 Transmission tomography imaging, including the mathematics revolving around cone-beam integral transforms, types of acquisition (circular, spiral), and an introduction to the interior problem in CT.
[SC12] Ch 16
Week 5 Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) Topics in SPECT imaging such as flood-field uniformity correction, attenuation correction, scatter correction, and partial volume effects (partial voluming should be covered prospectively for kinetic modeling).

[SC12] Ch 17, [MW04], [HZ06]
Week 6 & 7 Positron Emission Tomography (PET) I
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) II

Problem Set II

 [SC12] Chp 18
Week 8 
Iterative Tomographic Reconstruction Covers the Bayesian framework under which iterative tomographic reconstruction is interpreted (this includes a detailed explanation of Expectation Maximization), followed by a presentation of the MLEM algorithm, and continued by an introduction to maximum a posteriori (MAP) methods of image reconstruction (modeling of the prior distribution, anatomical priors, bias on the solution, penalty/regularization term in optimization).
Week 8 Micro-SPECT, micro-PET
Clinical Applications of SPECT
Clinical Applications of PET
Week 9 Kinetic Modeling of Physiologic Data I

Kinetic Modeling of Physiologic Data II

Kinetic Modeling of Physiologic Data III

 Compartmental modeling kinetics, applications to PET and SPECT imaging.

[SC12] Chp 21
Week 10 Basics of X-ray Computed Tomography

Problem Set III

 Physical principles of X-ray computed tomography (Hounsfield units, types of acquisitions, detectors, etc.), artifacts arising from the physics of CT (beam hardening, low-dose), and artifact correction methods.
[SC12] Chp 21
Week 11 & 12 Basics of Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Mid-Term Exam

 CMR physics (magnetization, relaxation, Bloch equations), signal detection concepts, basics of multi-dimensional MR Imaging (slice selection, phase and frequency encoding).
Also covers interpretation of k-space, signal in k-space, sampling and aliasing, signal/contrast/noise, and basics of acquisition (spin echo, gradient echo).
Week 13 Optical Imaging Covers topics in optical fluorescence and bioluminescence imaging combined with nuclear and/or magnetic resonance imaging in terms of near-infrared imaging probes and instrumentation for their use in image-guided diagnosis and therapy.
Handouts
Week 13 Multi-modality/Hybrid Imaging Topics in multi-modality imaging such as challenges in simultaneous acquisition (providing an overview of state of the art image registration methods that may be used to fuse the modalitites), and hybrid imaging for PET/MR and PET/CT comparing advances in each modality.
Week 14 Ultrasound Imaging

Problem Set IV

 Ultrasound elastography, the physical basis and clinical context in which this technology is applied, through the framework of precision medicine for diffuse liver disease.
Handouts
Week 15 Project Presentations
Final Exam		 Presentations of projects assigned to auditing students.