Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
in diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. A common definition of medical imaging
is: The technique and process used to create images of the human body for clinical
purposes (medical procedures seeking to reveal, diagnose or examine disease) or
medical science (including the study of normal anatomy and physiology).
With the increasing size and number of medical images, the use of computers
for processing and analyzing these images has become necessary. In particular, as
a task of delineating anatomical structures and other regions of interest, image seg-
mentation algorithms play a vital role in numerous biomedical imaging applications
such as the quantification of tissue volumes, diagnosis, study of anatomical struc-
ture, and computer-integrated surgery. Classically, image segmentation is defined as
the partitioning of an image into nonoverlapping regions which are homogeneous
with respect to some characteristics such as intensity or texture.
An accurate segmentation of a medical image is necessary to determine the cor-
rect shape of a tumor or to make a 3D reconstruction of body organs. For this reason,
this work focuses on fuzzy techniques for medical image segmentation. However,
these techniques can also be used in denoising, superresolution or reduction of med-
ical images.
Medical image segmentation can be tackled in very different ways due to the
wide range of acquisition technologies of these images. The most used include:
•
Radiography
•
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
•
Nuclear medicine
•
Tomography
•
Ultrasound
Other acquisition techniques are not mentioned here, either because there are not
many works in the literature related to them such us Photo acoustic imaging and
Breast Thermography or because are not primarily designed to produce images but
which produce data susceptible to be represented as maps (i.e. containing posi-
tional information) such as electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalogra-
phy (MEG) or electrocardiography (EKG).
12.2.1
Imaging Technologies
In this subsection we present a brief review of medical image acquisition technolo-
gies. An in depth study can be found in [33].
Radiography:
This imaging modality utilizes a wide beam of x-rays for image
acquisition and it is the first imaging technique available in modern medicine. Pro-
jectional radiographs, more commonly known as x-rays, are often used to determine
the type and extent of a fracture as well as for detecting pathological changes in the
lungs (see Fig. 12.1). With the use of radio-opaque contrast media, such as barium,
they can also be used to visualize the structure of the stomach and intestines.
