Introduction
The Encyclopedia
of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance covered a huge topic area, with many highly
specific and esoteric aspects of great interest to those working in them but
with little relevance to those operating in other fields.
As a result, some of those with a more limited potential interest in the
topic have been deterred from purchasing and using the eight volumes of which it
is comprised. In an attempt to
redress this problem, the editors felt it would be appropriate to republish
sections of the Encyclopedia as independent volumes, with the intention that
they would appeal very directly to the specific groups of scientists and
clinicians at whom they were directed.
Because their
priorities lie in other directions, with the delivery of patient care as their
prime target, it was noted that one of the groups with a distinct focus for
which much of the content of the Encyclopedia, while of intellectual interest,
held little practical relevance, was the biomedical community.
These volumes, therefore, are an abstraction from the Encyclopedia of the
articles in it concerned with magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy.
It is concerned with imaging in all its forms, and with spectroscopy in
as far as it relates to in vivo studies,
and clinical applications involving in
vitro investigations of tissue.
The volume is
substantially comprised of articles published in the Encyclopedia, some as they
were originally presented, where there is little new information, and some more
or less substantially revised in the light of what has been happening since the
articles were first written. A
number of new articles have been added where topics have either developed from
fragmentary discussions in the early 1990s, or have been created ab
initio since the first publication. The
book is unique in its coverage, with a balance between imaging physics,
spectroscopy and clinical studies. In
many ways, it reflects the scope covered by the major international in
vivo NMR Societies, with a conscious effort to allow the reader to
understand all the elements that make up modern clinical magnetic resonance.
Equally, the topic is so huge, and still evolving so fast in detail,
rather than concept, that it can act as no more than an Introduction, though at
quite a demanding level. Someone
who peruses this book will appreciate the extent, nature and dynamics of human
and animal magnetic resonance, and will have the route map to allow him (or her)
to find any further information he (or she) may need.
After reading this work, it
should be possible for someone to design and build and operate a whole body
magnetic resonance system, or even an NMR microscope. The result is unlikely to be as good as the best operators
can achieve, but, then, they have had many years of practice!
This work, unlike
its predecessor Encyclopedia which listed them alphabetically, has organised the
various articles which comprise it into topic-based sections.
The work begins
with an overview section, which includes discussion of the role of MR in
practice, and covers general topics such as signal-to-noise ratio, and safety.
This is followed by sections covering machine hardware, and the means by
which image data is generated. Thereafter,
there is a group of sections describing the methodology and techniques of in
vivo MR, including aspects of very high resolution imaging (microscopy) and
including articles on a variety of imaging topics, on flow (at all levels of
molecular motion), and about observation of brain function.
This part of the work concludes with sections about the very important
subject (because it is responsible for so much of the contrast between tissues
which is such a feature of MRI) of relaxometry, the various contrast agents now
being used in MRI, and the techniques of MRS.
Next there is a
section on the animal models used, principally, in MRS, before the work
concludes with a series of sections covering the clinical uses of MRI and MRS.
These sections are grouped by body segment (head and spine; thorax,
abdomen and pelvis, and the musclo-skeletal system) and mix articles on the two
topics by tissue type rather than differentiating them by methodology.
This is surely right, as MRS is essentially a companion tool for MRI, and
is used to gain additional functional information from a region the morphology
of which is already known.
Because of the way
in which the work was put together, and the time period over which it was
assembled, there is inevitably some unevenness of coverage in it.
Its clinical coverage is less extensive than would be found in one of the
Radiological textbooks; but it does, uniquely, provide substantial coverage of
all aspects of both MRI and MRS as they are practised at this time.
I am very conscious
of the support of the many people who have made it feasible for me to edit this
work, and I would like to thank them very gratefully for it.
Without contributors the work would be a thin one indeed, and I am most
grateful to the many busy people who have supplied the articles in it.
I am grateful to the Editors-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia
of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance for their encouragement in attempting this
further task, and, for her huge assistance, to my editor at Wiley, Ms. Jenny
Cossham. The work would not have
happened without her. I must also
mention my secretary, Mrs. Mary Crisp, who has had much to put up with in its
preparation, and who has been a tireless and most effective supporter, and Geoff
Reynolds, also at Wiley, who has supervised the book�s production.
Finally, I have to
thank my wife, who has had to live with the gestation of the book with all its
attendant traumas. She has had more
to cope with than it is right for any woman!
I.R.Young.