Medical imaging impacts on virtually every aspect of clinical practice and is one of the key elements in diagnosis, monitoring, and in many cases image guided therapy.
Rapid development in clinical research is producing a continuous stream of new knowledge of disease processes, new therapeutic targets and the complex relationship between an individual’s symptoms and the actual disease state. There is often however a disconnect between use of medical imaging in clinical practice and clinical research. The former requires rapid error-free reading using the quickly acquired imaging data, normally showing structural damage. In clinical research, thorough analysis of images, often guided by computer-aided tools allows in-depth understanding of the disease, with prime focus on detecting pre-structural changes.