Section: Research

Michael King, Ph.D.

Academic Role: Professor

Faculty Appointment(s) In:
   Radiology

Other Affiliation(s):
   Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics
   Nuclear Medicine

Clinical/Research Interests

Nuclear Medicine

• Correction for causes of image degradation in nuclear medicine such as attenuation, distance-dependent spatial-resolution, and scatter.
• Tomographic image reconstruction for SPECT and PET.
• Assessment of image quality by task performance studies using human and numerical observers.
• Quantitation of activity and assessement of function.
• Image segmentation and computer vision applications in nuclear medicine.

Figure A

Above figure illustrates the degradation of a SPECT transverse slice through the chest by photon attenuation, the acquisition of scattered photons, and the finite imaging system spatial resolution.

At left side is the true source distribution in this simulated image. Note the shape edges and uniform intensity through the soft tissues, lungs, liver, and heart.

Reconstruction of simulated projections from this distribution look exactly like the source distribution in the absence of attenuation, scatter, and system spatial resolution illustrating the success of reconstruction methods with ideal data.

At the left is the slice reconstructed from data which has included the impact of attenuation, scatter, and system spatial resolution. Note the variation in intensity in regions of uniform source distribution, and distortation in shape.

Bringing compensation strategies for such degradations into the clinical use is the MAJOR GOAL of our research efforts.

To learn more about SPECT compensation strategies for these degradations you can read a PDF file with our review chapter on this topic.

Attenuation, Scatter, and Spatial Resolution Compensation in SPECT, to appear in forth coming book EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY: The Fundamentals of PET and SPECT, M. N. Wernick and J. N. Aarsvold, eds., Academic Press.

Current Teaching
Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation I : A 4 credit hour course covering radiological physics and instrumentation for Nuclear Medicine Technologists.

Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation II : A 4 credit hour course covering planar and tomographic nuclear medicine imaging, and computer applications.

Medical Imaging Systems (BE 581) : A 3 credit hour graduate course joint with BME at WPI.

Nuclear Medical Physics for Cardiologists : Series of evening lectures for cardiology fellows.

List of Graduate Students

Current Grants
NIH R01-CA42165: Digital Restoration of SPECT Images for Tumor Detection, M.A. King, Ph.D. PI, 2/1/97-1/31/01.

NIH R01-HL50349: Improved accuracy for SPECT cardiac perfusion imaging, M.A. King, Ph.D. PI, 1/1/99- 12/31/03.

Picker International, Grant for joint research on attenuation correction and reconstruction of positron coincidence images. M.A. King, PI, 4/1/97-3/31/00.

Office: H2-577
Phone: 508-856-4255
E-mail: Michael.King@umassmed.edu

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