The Application of High Energy Physics Techniques in Medical Research

The Medical and Biophysical Sciences have often made use of technical developments in the Physical Sciences. High Energy Physics has made its contributions in recent years by bringing the use of scintillation and solid state detectors in trace element detection and in gamma imaging. More recently, the use of position sensitive detectors such as Multi-wire Proportional Chambers (MWPC) has been introduced into Medical and Biophysical Research. In this paper we cover some of the applications of MWPC to problems in Medical Imaging of X-rays and γ rays, Neutron Radiography and X-ray Crystallography of complex organic molecules. The fact that these devices can be used to produce digitized information as well as analog image displays makes them very useful for 3-dimensional Reconstruction of Radioisotope Images. Details of the construction and associated electronics of MWPC are covered.