Slashdot Mirror
First-Ever Color X-ray on a Human (home.cern)
What if, instead of a black and white X-ray picture, a doctor of a cancer patient had access to color images identifying the tissues being scanned? From a post: This is now a reality, thanks to a New-Zealand company that scanned, for the first time, a human body using a breakthrough color medical scanner based on the Medipix3 technology developed at CERN. Father and son scientists Professors Phil and Anthony Butler from Canterbury and Otago Universities spent a decade building and refining their product. Medipix is a family of read-out chips for particle imaging and detection. The original concept of Medipix is that it works like a camera, detecting and counting each individual particle hitting the pixels when its electronic shutter is open. This enables high-resolution, high-contrast, very reliable images, making it unique for imaging applications in particular in the medical field. Hybrid pixel-detector technology was initially developed to address the needs of particle tracking at the Large Hadron Collider, and successive generations of Medipix chips have demonstrated over 20 years the great potential of the technology outside of high-energy physics.
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/...
nothing to see here - move along
They should be able to make this a 3D color X-ray by using two or more exposures at different power settings. There are applications that such a thing would be superior to MRI.
Except that MRI's do not relay in dangerous radiation like the X-Ray to produce their images and are much safer when used repeatedly as a result.
I'm all for new imaging technologies (CAT scans, X-Rays, MRI, Ultrasound, PET scans and more), each has it's proper use and place in medical diagnostic use, the more tool choices we have the better. However, I'm not looking to completely replace current MRI with something that depends on X-Ray's for imaging due to safety concerns..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Of the 5 apostrophes in your post, 3 are grammatically incorrect. Thus you would have less errors if you did not use apostrophes at all. Nice post, BTW.
Fewer.
OK, these are cool images. However, I do think this is a bit biased toward the marketing-friendly description on the product page (marsbioimaging.com).
First, calling this a "color" image is not correct. Just as with radar, sonar, MRI, or anything else that captures non-visible light, what we are seeing is "false color". The distinction is that someone mapped signal values to colors, and that implies that those nice pics probably had some human input to make appropriate color choices (and not blue flesh, red bones, or whatever).
Second, this is not the first spectral CT, as the article seems to imply. Check out for example https://www.itnonline.com/article/spectral-imaging-brings-new-light-ct for a summary of what commercial offerings were available 3 years ago.
Don't get me wrong, it sounds like great stuff -- but there seems to be significant hype here, too.
I could care fewer
You couldn't care fewer.
There are two types of people in the world; those who believe there are two types of people, and those who don't.
The device doesn't actually measure the color of light the tissue reflects (can't due to no light reaching some of these tissues). It determines what type of tissue it is, then colors it in the images based on what we know the color of that type of tissue to be. Like adding color to old black and white movies based on our best estimate of skin tones, grass, roads, etc.
Nice to see the announcement of a color x-ray.
But, knowing how much normal x-rays, 3D mammograms, CAT, NMRs and other 30+ year old technologies still cost, I doubt that many folks in the sub $250K/yr category will be able to afford a color x-ray, much less a color x-ray movie in 3D, if the technology advances in a timely manner. Many hospitals and clinics are still charging up to $7000 for an ultrasound without insurance, but around $300-$600 with insurance. This is pitiful since a new top-tier ultrasound machine is priced at less than $50K, refurbished.
So, after 100 readings via insurance the machine is paid off. That will take a month at 4 readings a day. For the next several years, minus maintenance, the income from ultrasounds, a 30+ year old technology, is pure profit.
If they charged just $50 per reading they could pay off the machine in 10 months and still be reaping lots of profit, just not enough to allow the CEO and upper management to retire when they are 50.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!