Emerging Imaging Technologies in Medicine

From the discovery of x-rays in 1895 through the emergence of computed tomography (CT) in the 1970s and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the 1980s, non-invasive imaging has revolutionized the practice of medicine. While these technologies have thoroughly penetrated clinical practice, scientists continue to develop novel approaches that promise to push imaging into entirely new clinical realms, while addressing the issues of dose, sensitivity, or specificity that limit existing imaging approaches. Emerging Imaging Technologies in Medicine surveys a number of emerging technologies that have the promise to find routine clinical use in the near- (less than five years), mid- (five to ten years) and long-term (more than ten years) time frames. Each chapter provides a detailed discussion of the associated physics and technology, and addresses improvements in terms of dose, sensitivity, and specificity, which are limitations of current imaging approaches. In particular, the book focuses on modalities with clinical potential rather than those likely to have an impact mainly in preclinical animal imaging. The last ten years have been a period of fervent creativity and progress in imaging technology, with improvements in computational power, nanofabrication, and laser and detector technology leading to major new developments in phase-contrast imaging, photoacoustic imaging, and optical imaging.