The EOS digital x-ray unit
Traditionally, radiography systems have an X-ray tube at one end, film-screen cassette or detector at the other, a table between, and perhaps a mounted assembly on a U-arm or chest stand.
Visitors to the French firm Biospace Med’s stand at RSNA 2006, in Chicago, were therefore intrigued to be shown the EOS digital X-ray unit - a radical new digital radiography design that resembles a department store dressing room.
Biospace Med explained that the EOS linear-scanning architecture begins with a pair of X-ray tube and detector assemblies, positioned at 90° right angles, much like a dual-head cardiac gamma camera. ‘These assemblies are mounted on vertical rails and slide up and down during an examination, with the patient standing or sitting inside the system at a point where the X-ray beams from both assemblies intersect.’
Designed for orthopaedics, the EOS low irradiation 2-D and 3-D digital X-ray scanner covers the body from head to toe. With patient in a standing position, the system scans two simultaneous, perpendicular planar X-ray views to provide the clinician with corresponding digital planar radiographs and a 3-D bone envelope image.
A 2-D spinal examination can be performed within 5–10 seconds; a full body scan in under 25 seconds. The manufacturer also points out that patient irradiation is 5–10 fold below the dose received during conventional CR or DR examinations.
‘High image dynamics allow the simultaneous observation of soft and bone tissues,’ Biospace Med points out, adding: ‘The 3-D bone envelope, calculated using a proprietary technology, can be derived from the two digital radiographs for the spine, knee and hip. It replaces the 3-D image obtained from highly irradiating CT multiplanar digital imaging.’
Developed in collaboration with ENSAM/LBM (Laboratoire de Biomécanique de l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers), Paris, and ETS/LIO (Laboratoire de recherche en Imagerie et Orthopédie de l’Ecole de Technologie Supérieure), Montréal, the EOS has successfully undergone clinical trials at the Hôpital St Vincent de Paul, Paris and Hôpital Erasme (Brussels) within an EU-funded programme.
The EOS will be in sale from mid-2007.
08.03.2007
