A Study on Various Medical Imaging Modalities and Image Fusion Methods

Abstract

Multimodal medical image fusion is the effective assimilation of different imaging techniques for enhancing the capability to analyze, to guide therapy, treatment, or predict end results. The accuracy of the image obtained from various medical imaging modalities has a significant impact on successful diagnosis of a disease, as image fusion provides supplementary valuable information. Complete and accurate information cannot be acquired from single medical imaging modality. Predominantly, the modalities can be classified into anatomy and metabolism; the former one gives the structural information of the body parts, and the latter one gives the functional information of the cells in the organ. Hence, the integration of various modality images will provide supplementary valuable information. In medical field, multimodal image fusion has become the focusing area of research and development of medical field. This survey paper portrays the background of multimodal medical image process, different multimodal imaging modalities, and various state-of-art methods for multimodal fusion methods. This paper also discusses the importance, opportunities, challenges, and advantages of multimodal medical image processing.