Biomedical Imaging

Biomedical imaging is a technique used for imaging various parts of the human body for several purposes like disease diagnosis and treatment. As it includes different radiological methods such as x-ray radiography, ultrasonography, fluoroscopy, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), tactile imaging, endoscopy, thermography, elastography, positron emission tomography, etc. The purpose of biomedical imaging is to study the abnormalities on the internal part of the body through in vivo physiological process, advanced sensors and computer technology. Biomedical imaging technologies utilized different source of energies like x-ray, sound, magnetism, and light to assess the condition of the interbody such as organs, and tissues and monitor the patient’s overtime for evaluation. Digital imaging technologies gave rise to CT scan and allow physicians to examine and monitor patients real-time, and along with x-ray fluoroscopy, physicians perform angiograms and biopsies. Current research trends are focusing on functional imaging using CT and MRI to measure the blood profusion of tissues for patients having a history of a heart attack. Researchers are also concentrating on functional MRI to measure brain activities followed by stroke and head injury.

Positron emission tomography is a radiological imaging technique which use a radioactive tracer to measure changes in body metabolism, blood flow and oxygen consumption, etc. It also enables researchers to compare different images of brain activity captured during the depression and to study the chemical activities in the brain, as it is projected as technological advancement. The further development of optical molecular imaging technique has been an excellent finding and a new area of research in imaging abnormal human cells and molecules as it replaces the existing techniques of biopsy and cell culture. Using such techniques with contrast imaging agent helps to identify a specific molecule, abnormal growth phases of cancer cell and can be spotted before any symptoms. Likewise, future development and identification of biomedical imaging techniques for visualizing the internal part of the human body and thus helps reducing invasive diagnostic and treatment procedures.