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Digital image quality in medicine
Pianykh O., Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated, Cham, Switzerland, 2014. 80 pp. Type: Book (978-3-319017-59-4)
Date Reviewed: Sep 23 2014

This text is a wonderful review of the essential technologies and computational algorithms for assuring digital image quality in medical applications. While the material deals with higher level concepts, it is written in a rather pleasant, if not informal, style. Consider for example the beginning of chapter 2, which asks the reader to participate in a “short quiz” about image distortion (the questions and answers are straightforward). The vast use of images in the figures presented throughout the text greatly enhances the presentation of the material. In addition, numerous diagrams and tables are included to further provide the reader with information to maximize the learning experience.

Despite its brevity, or perhaps because of it, this handbook is an essential introduction and review for any practitioner interested in medical imaging from a computational perspective. In this regard, the reader must understand that it does not involve itself with the multitude of modalities and equipment available to a radiologist or imaging technician, but is more concerned about what happens to the medical image for proper analysis. It is for this reason that this manual is included in Springer’s “Understanding Medical Informatics” series.

A total of nine chapters are presented. The first and last chapters are the introduction (five pages) and conclusion (one page), and the seven other chapters concentrate on the main material. Chapter 2 (four pages) investigates the difference between analog and digital images, and successfully explains the inherent problems when information between the pixels (bits of color in a digital image) is necessary for enhancing image information. Chapter 3 (20 pages) follows suit by explaining image interpolation from a practical and mathematical viewpoint, ending the discussion with a self-check to ensure that the reader understands the concepts.

While the chapters so far deal with increasing the amount of known information, chapter 4 (26 pages) deals with compression, the ability to store images with lower data requirements than at the time of image acquisition. There are two categories of compression, lossless and lossy; the former guarantees that the exact original image data can be reconstructed, whereas lossy accepts slight color changes at the pixel level while maximizing the ratio of compression. Lossy is by far more popular today due to the advent of the JPEG format and the fact that, in most application domains, the slight changes of color at the pixel level do not affect the quality of information that the user derives from the image.

Image enhancement (chapter 5, 20 pages) deals with noise in the image and describes the technology (filters) that can remove the fuzziness and blur from the image. Again, this chapter and the remaining chapters provide a self-check. Chapter 6 (18 pages) considers the radiologist’s picture archiving and communication system (PACS) in a modern context: storing images on the web. With the advent of the cloud and governmental efforts to streamline the medical services pipeline, this chapter emphasizes the importance of proper storage and retrieval of images in an efficient manner. Chapters 7, on image display (14 pages), and 8, on the calibration of image acquisition via digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) protocols (12 pages), deal with the quality of image input/output (I/O) devices for proper usage by medical professionals.

The book is a welcome addition to the medical imaging practitioner’s library.

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Reviewer:  Michael Goldberg Review #: CR142746 (1412-1035)
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Applications (I.4.9 )
 
 
Medical Information Systems (J.3 ... )
 
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