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Human Images From World's First Total-Body Scanner Unveiled (medicalxpress.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Medical Xpress: EXPLORER, the world's first medical imaging scanner that can capture a 3-D picture of the whole human body at once, has produced its first scans. The brainchild of UC Davis scientists Simon Cherry and Ramsey Badawi, EXPLORER is a combined positron emission tomography (PET) and X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanner that can image the entire body at the same time. Because the machine captures radiation far more efficiently than other scanners, EXPLORER can produce an image in as little as one second and, over time, produce movies that can track specially tagged drugs as they move around the entire body.
EXPLORER will have a profound impact on clinical research and patient care because it produces higher-quality diagnostic PET scans than have ever been possible. EXPLORER also scans up to 40 times faster than current PET scans and can produce a diagnostic scan of the whole body in as little as 20-30 seconds. Alternatively, EXPLORER can scan with a radiation dose up to 40 times less than a current PET scan, opening new avenues of research and making it feasible to conduct many repeated studies in an individual, or dramatically reduce the dose in pediatric studies, where controlling cumulative radiation dose is particularly important.
EXPLORER will have a profound impact on clinical research and patient care because it produces higher-quality diagnostic PET scans than have ever been possible. EXPLORER also scans up to 40 times faster than current PET scans and can produce a diagnostic scan of the whole body in as little as 20-30 seconds. Alternatively, EXPLORER can scan with a radiation dose up to 40 times less than a current PET scan, opening new avenues of research and making it feasible to conduct many repeated studies in an individual, or dramatically reduce the dose in pediatric studies, where controlling cumulative radiation dose is particularly important.
the best way has always been NMR spectroscopy or magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) which are very very detailed, they don't specify the resolution nor the interpolation (guessing) thats done so basically they will have patents galore around it compared to NMR which is much higher detail and competing equipment manufacturers
whats the advantage apart from whole body ? (that I'm guessing is actually guessed rather than scanned at the same time)
Will it be able to visualize the appendix in all its five different possible positions and variations in length and diameter? You know, so people don't suffer for years with all the variations of chronic, recurrent, or gangrenous appendicitis or appendiceal phlegmon or a stuck appendicolith when abuse of antibiotics masks the symptoms of acute appendicits, as has been known since at least 1962?
You know, because ultrasound, CT, or MRI in all its modalities (with or without contrast) can't see shit when it comes to the appendix?
Ahhh, 21st century medicine is still defeated by 19th century diseases when it comes to the appendix. Back then they just took it out.
That's some weird-ass porn
Table-ized A.I.
My kitty cat (aka PET) was sick once and had a full body scan. How is a human different? Yes, longer, the scanner has to scan more, but not impossible.
Perhaps not completly on topic, but this would be an awesome picture on the wall. Does anybody have a high res version of this picture? thx
When do these start showing up at airports?
"I'm sorry, your insurance doesn't cover the EXPLORER scan we gave you yesterday."
Some one needs to commoditize this. Make the scan so cheap you can just walk in and walk out 10 minutes later with your latest full body scan on a thumb drive. So cheap they can be installed at your local mall like a photo booth. Compare your current scan to the previous scan. Computer image processing can easily spot a small lump that didn't exist on the previous scan. Think of how many treatable cancers could be identified and treated before the meat bag even knew it was there. No more invasive check ups, no more sketchy doctor interpretations, no more waiting for test results.
The cost savings on to the medical industry would be huge. I dare say more than the cost of making scans for free.
...how full of shit someone is.
Full body PET/CT scanners already exist but they can only scan slice-by-slice. This one creates an image in real-time of the whole body in 3D.
PET scanning is invasive because it requires the injection of a radioactive tracer. The scanner actually records simultaneous gamma-ray disintegrations. There are many available tracers allowing to measure for instance glucose metabolism, which is great for oncology (cancer medicine). This is currently the most precise way to detect many cancer lesions, particularly lymphoma, cancers of the lymphatic system. Other tracers can be used to measure for instance blood perfusion.
This scanner is also interesting because it is less wasteful with gamma photons. This means that less tracer can be injected for the same image quality.