Medical Imaging Systems (offered by Medical Physics)
Course Contents
- Basic Radiation Physics: Classification of fundamental particles - Classification of radiation- Classification of ionizing photon radiation –- Types of indirectly ionizing photon radiations - production of x-rays – x-ray tubes - Photon beam attenuation - Types of photon interactions -Photoelectric effect - Coherent (Rayleigh) scattering - Compton effect (incoherent scattering) - Pair production – Photonuclear reactions- Contributions to attenuation coefficients - Relative predominance of individual effects - Effects following photon interactions - Filters - Half Value Thickness - Quantity and Quality of Radiation – unit of energy.
- Radiation Units & Measurements: Exposure, unit of Exposure – absorbed dose and units of absorbed Dose – dose equivalent and effective dose – Radiation detection – principles – ion chamber.
- Radiation Protection: Basics of Radiation Protection- Radiation effects – genetic and somatic – stochastic and deterministic –principles of radiation protection – time, distance and shielding – protection principles – justification, optimisation and dose limits – ALARA – equivalent dose and effective dose – Radiation weighting factor – organ weighting factor - shielding materials – Basic Safety Standards –ICRP 60 –National Regulatory Requirement– Room design consideration for X-ray, CT, SPECT and PET installations – Personnel monitoring – Film Badge – TLD and pocket dosimeters.
- Radiological Imaging principles and systems: Photographic Principles – Films - Types of film; Characteristics of films - Intensifying screens: X-ray cassette: - Types of cassettes; Identifying of cassettes; records necessary for cassettes; - x-ray dark room: X-ray developers; - Computed Radiography: storage phosphor plates – CR Reader - Digital Radiography – aSi – aSe flat panel imagers.
- Computed Tomography: Principles – generation of CT scanners – types of detectors – MDCT – Physics of projection radiography, source and recorder considerations (point source and extended sources, recorder point spread function)- Reconstruction techniques.
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Basic concepts - NMR - basic concepts of MRI – Basic MR image formation - RF Excitation – Relaxation (T1 and T2) – Introduction to MR coils - Volume coils - Gradient coils - Slice selection - phase encoding - frequency encoding - Introduction to pulse sequencing - Spin echo sequence – T1w image – T2W image- Proton density - Gradient echo sequence – Inversion recovery– FLAIR – EPI – DTI – Spectroscopy – Functional Imaging Special Acquisition Techniques: Angiography- Diffusion Imaging - Functional MRI (fMRI)- Parallel MRI.
- Ultrasound imaging: Basic physics, ultrasound Properties, transducers; principle design and types, A-mode, M-mode, B-mode, Linear and Curvilinear Arrays, Phased Arrays, Annular Arrays, The Near Field, The Far Field, Focused Transducers, Side and Grating Lobes-. Image quality and artefacts. Doppler.
- Nuclear Medicine imaging: Rectilinear scanner – Scintillation detectors - Gamma camera – SPECT – PET – DEXA scanner - Hybrid imaging systems – SPECT – CT, PET-CT.
- Other imaging system: Thermography; Telemetry; Optical imaging systems – optical property of tissues; Electromagnetic radiation effects on tissues