Essay Example on Revolutionizing Medical Care: The Power of Medical Imaging

Introduction

Medical imaging has waved itself into modern medicine and has revolutionized medical industry and effective delivery of health care in the last couple of years. Wilhelm Roentgen, a Nobel laureate, discovered the X-ray which gave to birth to radiology, has since led to massive quantity creation of digital images as opposed to the film-based medium used previously. In the present world, medical imaging uses nor-invasive state-of-the-art machines, which look at the inside of the body without any form of surgery (Kryszkiewicz et al. 2015).

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Currently, medical imaging uses imaging technologies such as X-ray radiography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), ultrasonography, optical imaging, Elastography, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), medical photography, and endoscopy. These techniques extend the human vision and elevated medical imaging to some robust and new generation diagnostics. Radiography, for instance, utilizes advanced 3D imaging from different angles, which generates detailed images for analysis (Gao, Qian & Hui, 2011). Similarly, MRI uses instruments that can produce 3D images through the use of strong magnets with powerful magnetic fields leading to a detailed image (Toyama et al., 2020). Advanced medical imaging has led to higher accuracy in diagnostics, hence offer support in the assessment and treatment of medical conditions leading to improved healthcare (Van Dijken et al., 2017).

What areas of anatomy and physiology of the human body are not imaged or imaged poorly at present?

Imaging has continuously played a substantial role in anatomical and physiological assessment, but sometimes, some parts of the human body are poorly imaged. For instance, tumors of the brain can have a poor contrast making imaging difficult (Kanekar & Mannion, 2012). Ultrasound of the lungs is also poorly imaged. Vincent et al. (2016) add that imaging is a problem in areas under the ribs, scapula, and central lung pathologies as well as patients with obesity, trauma, and subcutaneous emphysema. Poor imaging can be contributed to by the kind of imaging used. For example, White et al. (2014) posit that chest radiography may show poor images in a normal pericardium and lateral surface of the left ventricle, but more precise imaging is realized with MRI and computed tomography. Cysts and serous pericardium MRI show low signal on steady-state free precession (Abbara & Rajiah, 2018).

What sort of advances in medical imaging would be necessary to develop the sickbay diagnostic bed? What impact would such a device have on biological and medical fields?

With the advancement in technology, there is a need for rapid assessment and screening of patients in a sickbay diagnostic bed to lessen the workload of the doctors and speed up treatment. Steensma & Kyle (2017) argue that for this to happen, a fusion between science fiction and advances in imaging technology is inevitable. In a sickbay diagnostic bed, patients are scanned by a range of non-invasive monitors with an instant diagnosis. For example, advanced monitors such as thermos-imaging cameras and light wavelengths would be needed in diagnosing diseases of the liver, kidney, sepsis, and skin cancers as well as measuring oxygenation and blood flow in real-time (Fang, 2011).

Additionally, the invention of a spectrometer breathalyzer would be necessary. This breath analyzing machine diagnoses compounds and gases exhaled by a patient and maybe instrumental in detecting diabetes and asthma. Lastly, imaging instruments such as hyperspectral imagers need to be developed. Görgen, Nunez & Fangerau (2018) notes that these machines show the metabolism in the body by use of light, color, and temperature of the patient and can let the doctor see veins close to the surface of the skin. These ultimate non-invasive methods will be impactful since it will reduce the taken by the current medical imaging technologies and lessen the uncomfortable procedures subjected to the patient during diagnosis hence frees doctors to treat more people (Henderson & Carter, 2016).

References

Abbara, S., & Rajiah, P. (2018). Cardiac CT Imaging, An Issue of Radiologic Clinics of North America, Ebook (Vol. 57, No. 1). Elsevier Health Sciences.

Fang, J. (2011, September 08). Noninvasive Diagnostics: Space science makes Star Trek's Sickbay a reality. Retrieved from: https://www.zdnet.com/article/noninvasive-diagnostics-space-science-makes-star-treks-sickbay-a-reality/

Gao, X. W., Qian, Y., & Hui, R. (2011). The state of the art of medical imaging technology: from creation to archive and back. The open medical informatics journal, 5 Suppl 1, 73–85.

Görgen, A., Nunez, G. A., & Fangerau, H. (2018). Handbook of Popular Culture and Biomedicine. Springer International Publishing.

Henderson, L., & Carter, S. (2016). Doctors in space (ships): biomedical uncertainties and medical authority in imagined futures. Medical humanities, 42(4), 277–282.

Kanekar, S., & Mannion, K. (2012). Imaging of Head and Neck Spaces for Diagnosis and Treatment, An Issue of Otolaryngologic Clinics, E-Book (Vol. 45, No. 6). Elsevier Health Sciences.

Kryszkiewicz, M., Bandyopadhyay, S., Rybinski, H., & Pal, S. K. (Eds.). (2015). Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence: 6th International Conference, PReMI 2015, Warsaw, Poland, June 30-July 3, 2015, Proceedings (Vol. 9124). Springer.

Steensma, D. P., & Kyle, R. A. (2017). The Medical Doctors of Star Trek: Leonard “Bones” McCoy and Beverly Crusher. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 92(1).

Toyama, Y., Miyawaki, A., Nakamura, M., & Jinzaki, M. (Eds.). (2020). Make Life Visible. Springer Singapore.

Van Dijken, B. R., Van Laar, P. J., Holtman, G. A., & Van der Hoorn, A. (2017). Diagnostic accuracy of magnetic resonance imaging techniques for treatment response evaluation in patients with high-grade glioma, a systematic review and meta-analysis. European radiology, 27(10), 4129-4144.

Vincent, J. L., Abraham, E., Kochanek, P., Moore, F. A., & Fink, M. P. (2016). Textbook of Critical Care E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.

White, C. S., Haramati, L. B., Chen, J. J. S., & Levsky, J. M. (2014). Cardiac Imaging. Oxford University Press.