Lowering the cost of medical-imaging R&D

摘要

A look inside a typical piece of medical-imaging equipment reveals myriad technologies from many engineering disciplines that must collaborate to form a system. For example, developing X-ray scintillators in CT (computerized-tomography) machines to convert X-ray-particle energy into photon energy requires materials-science research into rare-earth materials. Capturing this photon energy over wide dynamic ranges requires custom analog-front-end electronics, and acquiring the data from tens or even hundreds of thousands of such X-ray detectors requires customized storage subsystems and interface technologies. Complex software algorithms then form images from this substantial volume of raw data. Radiologists, sonographers, and other medical-imaging professionals examine these images to make their diagnoses.