This volume describes the state of the art in research on image processing applications in medicine, and in particular, research on image segmentation, which is the extraction of salient features from medical images. Four particular research areas that are currently quite active--cardiology, neurology, mammography, and pathology--are especially emphasized.

While the presentation of individual areas varies, the general strategy of the book includes a brief discussion of the clinical motivation for each area; a short technical discussion of the engineering principles that underlie each imaging system, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); a detailed analysis of the research literature in the area and the different methodologies that have been proposed; and a presentation of recent or new results by some of the authors. The last section (chapter 11) consists of a discussion of the most likely, and of the most desirable, developments in each research field, providing a road map of the directions in which the editors, who are all respected experts in the field of medical imaging research, believe the field might evolve.

The back cover states, correctly, that “This volume will be of particular interest to researchers and advanced research students in image processing, pattern recognition, mathematical modeling, data analysis and medical engineering.” The wealth of technical detail, as well as the well-reasoned comparisons of the strengths and weaknesses of various published techniques, will be of great interest to medical imaging researchers and engineers. The book’s next statement, that it will also be of interest to researchers in the fields of cardiology, neurology, mammography and pathology, seems less applicable because the highly engineering-oriented nature of the text would probably deter most readers at the clinical or basic-sciences level. The sections that explain the basic physical principles that underlie the various imaging modalities would clearly be interesting to such an audience, but they represent a minute portion of the volume. Most of the material is at a highly detailed level, and includes both considerable complex mathematical notation, and highly specialized engineering considerations.

Chapter 1 is an overall introduction to the principles that underlie medical imaging. MRI takes the lion’s share of this chapter. Chapters 2 and 3 cover cardiology imaging issues, and describe in considerable detail two of the main active research problems in the field: determining the center point of the left ventricle, and segmenting the cardiac boundary. It also presents some of the successful algorithms developed by the authors, among others. Chapters 4 through 8 cover various aspects of image processing for neurological data, which is, generally speaking, less mature technically than the analysis of cardiology images. Chapter 9 covers mammography imaging. Chapter 10, finally, discusses applications of cell imaging for pathology diagnostics.

Overall, the book provid es a very detailed picture of medical imaging research. The writing and presentation style is not always homogeneous across different sections, reflecting contributions by different authors. Almost universally, however, the level of the presentation is advanced, relying on a huge array of mathematical formalisms and techniques, statistical concepts, biomedical engineering concepts, and software algorithms. This is definitely not an introductory presentation for someone who is new to the field. As a criticism, some of the sections that review previous research work are extremely detailed, and end up reading like dry lists of researchers, techniques, and pros and cons of each technique. It is hard to get a sense of the collective progress of the field by reading just these lists. Chapter 11, at the end of the book, is perhaps better suited for getting some collective feeling of where each sub-field is going.

In conclusion, the book provides the reader a good overview of some of the most current research areas in the field of medical image processing, a comprehensive review of past and present research, and a very extensive set of references to the literature. It also provides the reader with an idea of the enormous variety of mathematical and engineering tools that are used in the field. It is perhaps less successful at providing an overall road map and big picture for readers who are not already working in the field of medical imaging.