earth from over 200 miles above is an
inspiring sight but this unique vantage
point has practical value as well
since the early 1970s a series of
satellites looking at our planet has
been producing highly valuable pictures
these images colorized and enhanced with
computers are used to monitor erosion
urban growth and environmental changes
and to identify certain types of crops
and timber resources
it's called multi-spectral scanning and
thanks to research scientists like doug
rickman at nasa's national space
technology laboratories in basin louis
mississippi satellite data processing
techniques are now being applied to
medical images like this one the goal
improve disease detection and treatment
capabilities
one of the keys to this effort is a
relatively new body scanning technique
called magnetic resonance
this particular mr unit is part of
washington university's malintra
institute of radiology in st louis
missouri
the patient is carefully positioned by a
skull technologist then slid into a
super strong magnet
no harmful radiation is involved
the mr generates images that look to the
untrained eye like x-rays but there's a
very important difference
x-rays are most sensitive to bone
mrs to other tissues in the body like
the brain
what brings nasa into the picture is the
fact that the mr produces these images
in digital form meaning they can be
processed by a computer just like the
picture information transmitted via
satellite
research scientists at nstl use their
unique software package to assemble
different black and white views produced
by the scanner into a single composite
image
next color is added because we see
things much better in color than in
black and white
color images like this can then be blown
up and enhanced to bring out particular
areas of concern to the physician
much important information present in
the standard black and white format is
not clearly visible until these
processing techniques are applied
according to associate professor of
radiology at washington university dr
michael veneer what's happened with the
use of the nstl satellite image
processing technology is that now we're
studying the examinations in a much more
detailed way we can often contribute
very significantly to the management of
patient by answering questions we simply
couldn't answer any other way
the people at washington university are
now setting up their own image analysis
system the hope is that in the near
future this technology will become a
standard tool in patient evaluations
we think that for certain selected
examinations that
the actual surgical procedure that's
done on the patient
or whether the decision whether or not
to do surgery will be based on the
results of this type of multispectral
analysis and that's a remarkable finding
in technology which has only been
applied for the last year or so
nasa's medical imaging effort helping
doctors make the most of an exciting new
diagnostic tool
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