First 3D color radiography of a human

April 08, 2019

This is a historical first in smart health. New Zealand researchers have succeeded in performing a complete x-ray, in 3D color radiography of a human body.

New Zealand scientists have made the first-ever three-dimensional (3D) color X-ray of a human body, using a technique that could help improve medical diagnosis, according to CERN’s European physics lab, whose technology is used.

The new device, based on traditional black-and-white radiography, incorporates the particle tracking technology developed for CERN’s large LHC (Large Hadron Collider) particle collider, which in 2012 discovered the famous elemental particle elusive, the Higgs Boson.

3D color radiography: a CERN technology

You have probably already done an x-ray at the hospital. A black and bench image often used to detect fractures or sprains. The technique works and remains very effective and widely used in the medical field. However, it was probably time for things to change and for the medical diagnosis to improve.

Visually, the images are not really nasty, but it is a radical evolution in X-ray technology, more than 120 years after its first use. It can now be accessed in color and 3D.

“This color X-ray imaging technique could produce clearer, more accurate images and help doctors provide more accurate diagnoses to their patients,” CERN said in a statement.

According to CERN, the images clearly show the difference between bone, muscle and cartilage, but also the position and size of cancerous tumors, for example.

CERN’s Medipix technology works like a camera that detects and counts individual subatomic particles when they collide with pixels while their electronic shutter is open.

High resolution

This allows high resolution and high contrast images.

Thus, this new imaging tool provides images that no other imaging device can achieve.

The New Zealand company MARS Bioimaging Ltd, markets this 3D scanner, called “Spectral CT”.

In the coming months, this scanner, equipped with a Medipix reader chip, will be the first clinical trial on patients in orthopedics and rheumatology in New Zealand, paving the way for a potentially routine use of this device. next-generation equipment, according to CERN.

Specifically, this 3D color radiography technology would differentiate bone, muscle and cartilage. We could also see precisely the size and location of cancerous tumors. As a first step, the 3D scanner set up for this experiment will be used in a clinical trial in New Zealand with patients in orthopedics and rheumatology. Then, it should be able to be used by doctors without difficulty and could revolutionize medical imaging and health. He’ll just have to get used to seeing the inside of his body in a very detailed and … pretty creepy way.