Tomography system having nonconcurrent, compound axial scanning

Patent · Tue Aug 24 04:00:00 EDT 1976

OSTI ID:7145047

Brunnett, C J; Cox, Jr, J R; Snyder, D L; Mattson, R A

An improved method and apparatus is described for transaxial tomographic scanning of a patient. A scanning system is provided having a rotatably mounted X-ray radiation source/detector pair which orbits and radially scans the patient in the plane of orbit. The source provides a plurality of beams of radiation having axes in the orbital plane. The beams pass through the patient to an array of detectors each of which is aligned with one of the beams. Radiation intensity data is collected at predetermined orientations of each beam/detector pair as the assembly orbits about the patient. In a preferred embodiment the rotatably mounted source-detector pair is rotated as a unit through a preselected rotation angle about an axis effectively passing through the source. The axis and the source-detector pair connected to it are then orbited around the patient through an orbit angle while maintaining the preselected rotation angle. The axis is orbited about an origin lying in the orbital plane. A set of measurements is taken during the orbit as the beams from the X-ray source sweep through substantially uniformly spaced, coplanar points defined about the origin. After an orbit, the rotation angle is incremented, and the source detector pair re-orbits the patient for providing a new set of measurement data corresponding to the incremental rotation angle. Exact reconstruction is achieved after several orbit cycles when measurements are taken.

• Assignee: Picker Corp.
• Patent Number(s): US 3976885
• OSTI ID: 7145047
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

550600* -- Medicine
62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE
COUNTING TECHNIQUES
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
EQUIPMENT
IONIZING RADIATIONS
MEDICINE
NUCLEAR MEDICINE
RADIATIONS
RADIOISOTOPE SCANNING
TOMOGRAPHY
X RADIATION