Interior Tomography: A Step in the right direction.

Technology such as X-rays, CT scanners and MRIs have made looking into the body much easier and lead to treating many complications. All imaging systems provide their own sets of data, but what if we could combine these imaging tools to create a new type of imaging. Interior tomography is an imaging technique that focuses on individual structures in the body, which reduces the patient’s exposure to radiation. Some complications that come with narrowing your field of sight are losing the standard reference points for particular calibrations. Interior Tomography uses a different set of reference points such as blood flow and air pockets alongside older X-rays of the patient. There are systems that combine two imaging techniques like PET and CT, but they apply different methods in sequence instead of performing them simultaneously, making it harder to see what the body is doing in real time. The combination of MRI and CT is a big step for imaging and being able to produce high contrast and functional mechanics alongside structural detail. Many designs have been made and the programming has begun while the research teams wait for funding to start building the prototype for this new combo device.

The idea behind combining two imaging systems at once has always seemed to intrigue me. Giving the computer power to be able to use information from different systems of data so that they can give to the doctor a real-time situation of their patient is a step in the right direction. Being a Radiological Heath  Engineering major this might be something worth looking into as a future career.

 

http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/imaging/path-found-to-a-combined-mri-and-ct-scanner