Basic Technological Aspects and Optimization Problems in X-Ray Computed Tomography (C.T.)

摘要

A competition is arising between C.T. and NMR in the field of medical diagnostic imaging, and it is clear that the medical community interest is presently focused on NMR imaging. Nevertheless, it appears reasonable to assume that the clinical interest of C.T. for different pathologies is remaining. As long as this statement is confirmed, new technical advances can be expected in the near future in order to improve the main characteristics which are: the density resolution, the spatial resolution and the X-ray exposure time. Since only the technological aspects are concerned in this paper, the major advances can be expected in the field of photons flux production and detection. C.T. requires very stringent demands on X-ray tubes. Special tubes have already been developed for that application but further improvements are needed for high spatial resolution multislice machines. Multilinear array of detectors seems to be the major technological advance to accomplish in the near future in order to significantly improve the image quality, and to reach a true three-dimensional imaging. (ERA citation 10:040173)