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)

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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Basic MRI Components

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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
KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University
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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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
KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University
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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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Magnet - Superconductive Magnets

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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
KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University
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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University

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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

KA – MIT – Unit III – Feb, 2019, Sastra Deemed to University