Department of Mechanical Engineering, Unit Catalogue 2008/09 |
ME30290 Medical physics |
| Credits: 6 |
| Level: Masters |
| Semester: 1 |
| Assessment: EX 100% |
| Requisites: |
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Students must have A-level Physics in order to undertake this unit.
Aims: The aim of this unit is to introduce the application of physics and engineering to medicine, for both diagnosis and therapy.
Learning Outcomes: After taking this unit the student should be able to: * outline the diagnostic and therapeutic uses of x rays, gamma rays, radio frequency radiation, magnetic fields, electrons, neutrons, radionuclides and ultrasonic waves; * describe the physical principles underlying specific areas of medical imaging and ionising radiation therapy; * relate the quality of medical images to the physical principles underlying the equipment associated with their production, use, measurement and evaluation; * perform basic calculations on medical applications of ultrasound, ionising radiations and magnetic resonance imaging. * Describe the principles of measurement of physiological actions, and associated means of signal processing and interpretation. Skills: Numeracy T/F A, Problem Solving T/F A. Content: Introduction (1 hour): Introduction to applications of physics and engineering to medicine. Diagnosis and therapy. Physical properties of body tissues. Safety aspects. Ultrasonics (6 hours): Generation and structure of ultrasonic fields; Near field and far field of transducers, focused fields and pulsed fields. Arrays. Field measurements. Nonlinear propagation. Attenuation, absorption and scatter of tissue. Plane wave reflection and transmission at interfaces. Imaging system design and performance. Doppler principle. Continuous wave and pulsed Doppler instruments. Doppler imaging. Clinical applications. Exposure measurement and safety. Ionising radiation (6 hours):Generation and character of photon beams, absorption and scattering processes in tissue, including the effects of incident energy and tissue inhomogeneity. Generation and character of ionising particles, electrons, and heavier particles. Radiodiagnostic techniques and equipment, plain radiography, fluoroscopy, computed tomography. Radiotherapeutic techniques, teletherapy, brachytherapy principles of dosimetry. Radiation protection. Nuclear medicine (5 hours) Radioactivity, nuclear transformations, radionuclide production and radiopharmaceuticals, radiation detection and measurement. Equipment, clinical practice, imaging and non-imaging, therapy. Radionuclide dosimetry Magnetic Resonance Imaging (4 hours): Production of cross-sectional images of tissue properties, and function, using nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. Spatial resolution, dynamic range, imaging speed, contrast enhancement and safety. Physiological measurement (2 hours). Bioelectric potentials: cardiac, neurological, muscular sources: transducers, signal processing, interpretation: flow and pressure measurement, safety Seminars in special topics including radiofrequency ablation and medical uses of lasers. |