Customer Reviews

MRI: The Basics

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This 300 page paper back has 400 high quality and relevant illustrations (mainly diagrams and line drawings) that greatly help to illustrate some otherwise difficult-to-grasp concepts. The emphasis is on the how and why of magnetic resonance imaging, not on the interpretation of the images.

The authors have successfully negotiated the narrow difference between a book that is filled with mind numbing details and one which is over simplified with a trivial approach. While not getting bogged down in minutia that are endlessly fascinating to physicists, but demoralizing to many physicians, they haven't avoided the concepts which form the basis of MRI such as, K-space, Fourier transform and pulse sequences. Nor have newer scanning techniques that involve tissue suppression and MRA been slighted.

At the end of each chapter a succinct "Key Points" section emphasizes the most relevant features of the preceeding chapter. Also included at the end of each chapter is a self-assessment quiz (with answers at the end of the book).

This book is excellent for MR technologists, radiology residents in board preparation and non-radiolgist physicians who want to get up-to-speed in this exciting and rapidly growing subdiscipline of diagnostic imaging.

If this book were a movie, I would give it an enthusiastic, "Two Thumbs Up."

Though there are a lot of equations in this book, it is far more conceptual than the widely accepted Mitchell MRI book, and not as mathematically oriented as you would think at first glance. If you are starting out in MRI, read this book first and you'll have a good foundation for further learning. Mitchell's book, on the other hand, is too confusing for the first timer, and might cause you significant confusion when you move to other MR physics books because you are missing the fundamentals. Overall I highly recommend this book to any M.D. who wants to know fundamental MRI physics.

This is by far the easiest to understand MRI book I've seen.

It does miss out on the more mathematical and derivative aspects, but there are other texts to fill in the blanks for the interested reader. The tradeoff in focusing on comprehension is worthwhile.

"MRI:the Basics" was my first introduction to MRI. It did get me into the field quickly. However, there are some major flaws in this book.

The chapters on frequency/phase encoding is badly written. The basic mechanics is described in an imprecise way that it is misleading, if not completely wrong at some points. This leads to inconsistencies in many places, and makes the treatment of k-space unsatisfying. (That's pretty much all the major important topics in basic MRI!)

I still recommend it to newbies. But always consult a more technical book (for example, Liang and Lauterbur) when in doubt.

I bought the Kindle edition of this text for a class and have quickly discovered some flaws in this edition. They are easily seen in the sample of chapter 1. Figures 1-2 through 1-4 are supposed to be graphs showing sin(x), cos(x), and sin(x) and cox(x) on the same plot, but they all show sin(x) in the Kindle edition. From the sample of the print edition, it appears to be correct. It just makes me wonder what other errors the Kindle edition contains if something that simple is wrong.

My feeling about this book is mixed. It was my first introductory book to MRI, and it did get me into the field very quickly. However the chapter that describes frequency encoding and phase encoding is so badly written (the description is misleading, if not completely wrong at some points) that the treatment of k-space does not make sense. This makes the understanding of more advanced pulse sequences difficult, if not impossible without extra sources of information.

Since there really isn't that many choices for a beginner, this is a passable book. Just remember that the signal processing part of the book is inconsistent and misleading. Always consult a more technical book (for example, Liang and Lauterbur) when in doubt.

The book gives a nice summary of everything involved in MRI without being too brief or too in depth.

I was eager to know whether Amazon.com was a genuine company or a con (fraudulent) company. After registering and searching for the book I wanted, I placed an order. The processing was so fast and delivery was done immediately. I could believe what was happening. It took less than 5 days to get the book from USA to Australia, much shorter than what would take from local bookshops that were outsourcing the same book locally. I cannot imagine buying books any other way except through amazon.

Amazon.com, you are great and keep up the good work.

Samuel.

This is what I would call "conceptual MRI," clearly aimed at people who don't need much depth in understanding MRI. I don't hold that against the authors, because the title is "MRI: The Basics." It's delivering what it promises.

I do hold against the authors the abundance of errors and the lack of brevity in the book. By dumbing down the topic to make the concepts understandable, the authors often got the concepts somewhat wrong. For example, they claim that MRI is achieved by reflection of fields off of nuclei. That's not really accurate, although most readers would probably take it at face value. The book is full of these inaccuracies and sloppy math (e.g., equations in which the dimensions on each side are not equivalent). Regarding brevity, I often find the same statements repeated over and over for several pages. With every new paragraph the authors must start their explanation back at the very beginning, so it takes many words to explain very little.

On the plus side, there are very good figures in the book which aid in understanding. If things were explained more concisely, I would want to keep this book around as a reference. But the information is so diffuse that I would have to read a lot to find what I am looking for.

If someone has just one opportunity to learn about MRI or just needs to be able to run a scanner, then I would recommend this book. But for anyone who plans to go on and study it in any depth, you would be better off saving your money and buying a more advanced book, as you will outgrow this one quickly.

I gave it 2 stars, but that might be too harsh and I can't change it now. Pretend that I gave it 3.