Trends In Medical Imaging Technology

Dr Rashmi Badhe - Consultant Radiology, Global Hospital, gives an insight on how technology can streamline workflows and improve productivity in medical imaging

- Dr Rashmi Badhe

MEDICAL IMAGING is one of the most innovative and dynamic fields in the healthcare industry. It is crucial for disease diagnosis and has advanced remarkably over the last few years with the widespread adoption of imaging systems like MRI, CT & USG and various modifications of these technologies.

Some of the new trends in the medical imaging field include continued growth of various technologies such as:

Computed tomography (CT)

It is the workhorse of modern medical imaging. Today’s CT scanners include technological developments that enable us to better manage patient care, including high-quality images, dose guidance and regulation, spectral and multi-energy imaging, and expansion of cardiac and brain imaging.

Technology in CT has evolved from single slice scanner to ultra fast multidetector CT scanners reducing the acquisition time significantly, increasing the spatial resolution along with modifications to reduce patient radiation dose.

An exciting development that offers great promise to further increase the modality’s potential is dual energy CT (DECT), also known as ‘spectral imaging.’ It utilizes two separate energy sets to examine the different attenuation properties of matter, having a significant advantage over traditional single energy CT. It can create virtual non-contrast images from contrast-enhanced imaging, eliminating the need for a non-enhanced scan and thus reducing the radiation exposure to the patient. It can also delineate the composition of renal calculi and arterial plaques for appropriate management. It improves lesion detection and characterization in sub-centimeter sized lesions in the liver. DECT can enhance CT angiography protocols obt aining exquisite image quality and implementing calcium subtraction techniques at post-processing in case of significant wall calcifications, which can interfere with lumen assessment.