

In this restricted sense, medical imaging can be seen as the solution of mathematical inverse problems.

Medical imaging is often perceived to designate the set of techniques that noninvasively produce images of the internal aspect of the body. As of 2015, annual shipments of medical imaging chips amount to 46 million units and $1.1 billion. Medical imaging equipment is manufactured using technology from the semiconductor industry, including CMOS integrated circuit chips, power semiconductor devices, sensors such as image sensors (particularly CMOS sensors) and biosensors, and processors such as microcontrollers, microprocessors, digital signal processors, media processors and system-on-chip devices.

Radiation exposure from medical imaging in 2006 made up about 50% of total ionizing radiation exposure in the United States. In a limited comparison, these technologies can be considered forms of medical imaging in another discipline.Īs of 2010, 5 billion medical imaging studies had been conducted worldwide. Measurement and recording techniques that are not primarily designed to produce images, such as electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), electrocardiography (ECG), and others, represent other technologies that produce data susceptible to representation as a parameter graph versus time or maps that contain data about the measurement locations. Although imaging of removed organs and tissues can be performed for medical reasons, such procedures are usually considered part of pathology instead of medical imaging.Īs a discipline and in its widest sense, it is part of biological imaging and incorporates radiology, which uses the imaging technologies of X-ray radiography, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound, endoscopy, elastography, tactile imaging, thermography, medical photography, and nuclear medicine functional imaging techniques as positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Medical imaging also establishes a database of normal anatomy and physiology to make it possible to identify abnormalities. Medical imaging seeks to reveal internal structures hidden by the skin and bones, as well as to diagnose and treat disease. Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues ( physiology). A CT scan image showing a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm
