The use of MATLAB® in clinical Medical Physics is continuously increasing, thanks to new technologies and developments in the field. However, there is a lack of practical guidance for students, researchers, and medical professionals on how to incorporate it into their work.

Focusing on the areas of diagnostic Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Oncology Imaging, this book provides a comprehensive treatment of the use of MATLAB in clinical Medical Physics, in Nuclear Medicine. It is an invaluable guide for medical physicists and researchers, in addition to postgraduates in medical physics or biomedical engineering, preparing for a career in the field.

In the field of Nuclear Medicine, MATLAB enables quantitative analysis and the visualization of nuclear medical images of several modalities, such as Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), or a hybrid system where a Computed Tomography system is incorporated into a SPECT or PET system or similarly, a Magnetic Resonance Imaging system (MRI) into a SPECT or PET system. Through a high-performance interactive software, MATLAB also allows matrix computation, simulation, quantitative analysis, image processing, and algorithm implementation.

MATLAB can provide medical physicists with the necessary tools for analyzing and visualizing medical images. It is useful in creating imaging algorithms for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes, solving problems of image reconstruction, processing, and calculating absorbed doses with accuracy. An important feature of this application of MATLAB is that the results are completely reliable and are not dependent on any specific γ-cameras and workstations.

The use of MATLAB algorithms can greatly assist in the exploration of the anatomy and functions of the human body, offering accurate and precise results in Nuclear Medicine studies.

KEY FEATURES

• Presents a practical, case-based approach whilst remaining accessible to students
• Contains chapter contributions from subject area specialists across the field
• Includes real clinical problems and examples, with worked through solutions

Maria Lyra Georgosopoulou, PhD, is a Medical Physicist and Associate Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.

Photo credit: The Antikythera Mechanism is the world’s oldest known analog computer. It consisted of many wheels and discs that could be placed onto the mechanism for calculations. It is possible that the first algorithms and analog calculations in mathematics were implemented with this mechanism, invented in the early first centuries BC. It has been selected for the cover to demonstrate the importance of calculations in science.