Fundamentals of Medical Imaging. Second Edition. Paul Suetens (Author). Cambridge 2010, 264 pages, 76 illustrations, $ 108.00.

By the title of this book Fundamentals of Medical Imaging, one would think it should appeal to clinical neuroradiologists. In truth, this 264-page book is written primarily with the graduate student in medical physics in mind. The chapters include “Introduction to Digital Image Processing,” “Radiography,” “CT,” “MRI,” “Nuclear Medicine Imaging,” “Ultrasound,” “Medical Imaging Analysis,” and “Visualization for Diagnosis and Therapy.” In these chapters there are enough mathematical durations, graphs, and differential equations to give a radiologist severe arrhythmia.

For those who wish to delve deeply into the mathematical/physical underpinnings of our specialty, this book will be useful. For the rest of us who need to know (but not to this extent) why images appear as they do, give thanks that we no longer have to deal with integrals calculus. One can (fortunately) skip the mathematics and read summaries of all modalities currently in use clinically. The accompanying pictures of imaging equipment, diagrams explaining the generations of images, and the imaging all serve to explain each modality well. What, in particular, is worth scrutinizing is the chapter on visualization for diagnosis and treatment. Here one can gain an appreciation of the use of 2D, 3D, surface and volume rendering along with image integration in intraoperative neuronavigation and virtual reality displays. For those Departments with a strong Physics section, this book is recommended and clinical radiologists may wish to read portions of it to acquaint themselves with many evolving techniques in imaging.