• Question: What do you think will be the next breakthrough in medical imaging?

    Asked by bolzanoweierstrass to James, Marcus, Martin, Rob, Suzanne on 19 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Martin Zaltz Austwick

      Martin Zaltz Austwick answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      I think one of the big breakthroughs in imaging will be using light rather than x-rays to image parts of the body. X-rays are potentially harmful, so patients can only have a small number of scans. Using infra-red light doesn’t have that problem, and would be cheaper too, so more hospitals could afford it.

    • Photo: Suzanne McEndoo

      Suzanne McEndoo answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Yes, using light would be a huge improvement. Another thing is getting higher resolution images and the ability to process them so we can spot the tumours as early as possible.

    • Photo: Marcus Gallagher-Jones

      Marcus Gallagher-Jones answered on 20 Mar 2012:

      The biggest one I can see is one of resolution. I was at a talk earlier this year were work was presented showing how they can image the quantity of air within the lungs, they could actually see individual alveolar inflating. The big problem with this kind of imaging is that you need very big equipment to carry it out. Scaling down the equipment would be a big breakthrough.

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