The flat panel detector
High Quality still and fluoroscopic images despite reduced X-ray radiation
Japan's first X-ray images were taken in 1896 - just months after Roentgen's discovery - by Professor Muraoka, of Kyoto University, and Genzo Shimadzu Jnr.
![Over 100 Safire systems are already used in Japan](/media/story/101/image-1413132833.jpg)
110 years later, the company Shimadzu is well established in the global diagnostics arena with its computer tomography, digital subtraction angiography (DSA), cardiovascular systems, digital radiography & fluoroscopy systems, ultrasound and general radiography equipment. Recent developments include angiography systems with C-arm rotation speeds of up to 60 degrees/second, digital colour Doppler ultrasound units and mobile X-ray systems - and the Safire flat-panel detector (FPD), the world’s first large field flat panel detector to convert X-rays directly into electronic signals using amorphous selenium.
Available in two sizes (9x9 inches and 17x17 inches), Safire’s top layer is an X-ray conversion film. When X-rays pass through a patient’s body, this uses amorphous selenium to convert the X-rays directly into electric signals. A TFT (thin-film transistor) array then picks up the signal from each pixel and immediately transfers it to the processing system, to create clearer high-resolution images with less signal deterioration than those from an indirect-conversion flat panel. Noise is also reduced and dosage exposure is ‘dramatically reduced’, Shimadzu points out. With greater sensitivity than conventional X-ray films, Safire can produce still and fluoroscopic images that are qualitatively equal to, or better than film, even when the X-ray radiation emission is reduced from half to a third of a conventional X-ray examination.
For these reasons the firm predicts: ‘Current image amplifier technology, inferior in image quality and dose efficiency, will soon become obsolete.’
01.03.2006