Introduction to medical imaging and image analysis: A multidisciplinary paradigm

Recent advances in medical imaging with significant contributions from electrical and computer engineering, medical physics, chemistry, and computer science have witnessed a revolutionary growth in diagnostic radiology. Fast improvements in engineering and computing technologies have made it possible to acquire high-resolution multidimensional images of complex organs to analyze structural and functional information of human physiology for computer-assisted diagnosis, treatment evaluation, and intervention. Through large databases of vast amount of information such as standardized atlases of images, demographics, genomics, etc.newknowledge about physiological processes and associated pathologies is continuously being derived to improve our understanding of critical diseases for better diagnosis and management. This chapter provides an introduction to this ongoing knowledge quest and the contents of the book.