Medical imaging

Duration

33h Th, 12h Pr, 8h Labo., 1d FW

Number of credits

Lecturer

Christophe Phillips

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the second semester

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

Medical imaging refers to the techniques and processes used to create images of the human body (or parts thereof) for clinical purposes or medical science (including the study of normal anatomy and function), in non-invasive way as much as possible.
The main 4 families of imaging techniques will be covered:

• X-ray imaging, i.e. radiography and computed tomogrpahy
• nuclear medicine imaging, i.e. scintigraphy, SPECT and PET
• magentic resonnance imaging; and
• ultra-sound imaging.

• the physics principles involved;
• the source and detection of the signals;
• the interaction of the signal with biological tissues;
• where necessary, the image reconstruction from the signal recorded;
• the limitations and artefacts usually encountered.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

The course aims at presenting the main medical imaging techniques from an engineering point of view. The student will thus learn the technical aspects of these imaging techniques:

• physical: where do the signal used come from ?
• systems: what apparatus can be used to measure those signals ?
• signal processing: how to build an image from the recorded signal(s) ?
• practical, what do these images represent?

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

• Signal processing: sampling, filtering, Fourier transform.
• Notions of modern physics

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

• Some very specific topics are presented by external speakers: radio-protection, medical IT, etc.
• Problem solving, individually or in groups.
• Practical sessions at the Cyclotron Research Centre: acquisition, reconstruction and processing of PET and MR images.
• Visits of specific departments at the university hospital and/or research centre(s): nuclear medecine and radiotherapy at least.
• if possible, visit of Siemens Healthineers HQ, CT and MR factories in Erlangen (Germany).
• Attendance at the festival "ImagéSanté" (http://www.imagesante.org/) if it is organised during the academic year.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)

Theory is at the Montefiore Institure, B28. Exercises and pratical sessions will be organised at Montefiore or CRC.
The course is taught in English.

Recommended or required readings

Reference book: Medical Imaging Signals and Systems (544 pages) by Jerry L. Prince, Jonathan Links. Prentice Hall (second edition, March 28, 2014). ISBN-10 0132145189

Assessment methods and criteria

Oral or written exam, to be agreed with the students.

Work placement(s)

In the field of neuro-imaging, internships can be organised in research laboratories:

• in Liège, at the GIGA - CRC in vivo imaging. Acquistion and processing of PET and MR images;
• abroad, UK, Canada, USA,... Check with the professor in charge of the course.

Organizational remarks

The slides are made available, via the MyULg site, prior to the courses.

Contacts

Christophe Phillips(c.phillips@ulg.ac.be)

Adaptation of teaching commitments following the COVID-19 pandemic for the May-June 2020 session

Teaching methods implemented : distance-learning

The lessons are given by videoconference at the scheduled time: Friday morning from 9h to 12h.
A link to the virtual classroom, on the WebEx platform, is sent to students the day before the exam and called back the same morning. During the course, the slides are presented by screen sharing and explained orally with the teacher on video. The external speakers planned in the course program will participate via the same interface. Students are invited to interrupt the lesson to ask a question at any time, via their microphone or the "chat" channel.
In parallel to the course, work in groups of 2 or 3 students continues. Information requests must go through the GitLab "issues", either in each private "repository" (visible by a single group of students) or in the public "repository" (visible by all students of the course). The final report and the code will thus be made available in each private "repository".

Assessment subjects

The material to be studied covers all that has been seen during the course. Students can refer to the course slides. However, certain parts (equations, sections, figures, ...) were announced during the course as not being part of the material to be studied because too complicated, not very useful or simply not seen in class.

Assessment methods

The evaluation will be done by individual videoconference. Each student will be entitled to approximately 30 minutes of examination. Questions will be drawn, for example with a die.
The questions will cover topics like:
- explain the technical principles of different medical imaging modalities
- describe a figure or graph that will be presented wihtout its lables
- comment and compare the different medical imaging modalities

This will be done orally with a minimum preparation time. During the examination and depending on the remaining time available, it will be possible to come back to a previous question to provide further details.
 

Contacts

Christophe Phillips (c.phillips@uliege.be)

Adaptation of teaching commitments following the COVID-19 pandemic for the Aug-Sept 2020 session

Assessment subjects

Assessment methods

Contacts

Items online