Medical physics concerns the application of physics to medicine. Generally concepts of physics and methods are applied to
medical imaging and radiation therapy to help diagnose and treat human disease. This is a very diverse field that applies the knowledge gained in other areas of physics (such as high-energy Physics) to heal people.Medical imaging refers to the application of imaging techniques and devices to living things.
Medical imaging may be "clinical", seeking to diagnose and examine disease in specific human patients (see pathology). Alternatively, it may be research-motivated, attempting to understand processes in humans or animal models.
Widely used medical imaging techniques (often termed modalities) include:
Radiation Oncology
Radiation Oncology is the branch of medicine that specializes in the use of high-energy radiation to attack and kill cancer. Radiation is directed in a carefully controlled fashion to a specific part of the body, with the goal of destroying cancer cells without significant injury to the surrounding normal tissue. Radiation works by damaging the genetic material (DNA) of the tumor cell so that it loses the ability to reproduce itself; upon attempted division, the cell dies. Radiation is similar to surgery in that it is a form of local therapy that only treats a specific area of the body. In contrast, chemotherapy and hormonal therapy, which by design spread throughout the entire body, are referred to as systemic therapy. The success of radiation therapy depends, in large measure, on the accuracy of delivery of specified absorbed doses of ionizing radiations to selected targets, in both tumors and normal tissues. These standards have been developed by the American College of Radiation Oncology (ACRO) to assist the radiation oncology physicist to ensure accurate and safe delivery of external beam radiation therapy. Since the practice of radiation oncology physics occurs in a variety of settings, the judgment of a Qualified Medical Physicist should be used to apply these standards to individual practices.
Some terminology used in medical physics: 3D conformal radiotherapy, Treatment planning, portal imaging, SRT, SRS, HDR, LDR, Linac, IMRT, PDD, TMR, TPR, OCR, OAR, CT simulator, conformity, uniformity, portal imaging, tomotherapy, brachytherapy, gamma knife, MLC, MMLC, QA, QC, radiation dosimetry, beam commissioning, beam characterization, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), PET, SPECT, gamma camera, CT MDCT, PET/CT functional brain imaging, ultrasound imaging, etc.