Medical Applications with Synchrotron Radiation in Japan

Abstract

In Japan, various medical applications of synchrotron X-ray imaging, such as angiography, monochromatic X-ray computed tomography (CT), radiography and radiation therapy, are being developed. In particular, coronary arteriography (CAG) is quite an important clinical application of synchrotron radiation. Using a two-dimensional imaging method, the ®rst human intravenous CAG was carried out at KEK in May 1996; however, further improvements of image quality are required in clinical practice. On the other hand, two-dimensional aortographic CAG revealed canine coronary arteries as clearly as those on selective CAG, and coronary arteries less than 0.2 mm in diameter. Among applications of synchrotron radiation to X-ray CT, phase-contrast X-ray CT and¯uorescent X-ray CT are expected to be very interesting future applications of synchrotron radiation. For actual clinical applications of synchrotron radiation, a medical beamline and a laboratory are now being constructed at SPring-8 in Harima.

Synchrotron radiation in radiology: radiology techniques based on synchrotron sources

“…Wavelength tunability is also the essential ingredient of another emerging technique: dichromography [8][9][10][11][12]. This approach is used for coronary angiography during intravenous injection of contrast material.…”

“…Several synchrotron facilities are actively engaged in experimental angiography programs based on dichromography [8][9][10][11][12]. The approach of centers like HASYLAB in Hamburg and Brookhaven [8,9]schematically illustrated in Fig.…”

“…The strategy used at the TRISTAN source [12] is based on a non-conventional elliptical wiggler that produces two slightly diverging beams. As the two beams pass through a specially designed monochromator, they are spread to horizontal and vertical sizes of several cen- Fig.…”

“…On the contrary, their conceptual basis is quite simple and can be explained in elementary terms: this is the scope of part II of our review. We will discuss, in particular, the following techniques: onewavelength mammography [4-7, and references cited in 7], two-wavelength digital subtraction angiography [8][9][10][11][12], phase-contrast/edge-enhancement imaging [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], diffraction-enhanced imaging (DEI) [23,24] and phase-contrast microtomography [25][26][27]. The objective of our presentation is to provide for non-specialized readers a simple picture of each technique: we neither intend to present a detailed report on the results of each technique nor a complete list of references.…”

Preliminary experiment of fluorescent X-ray computed tomography to detect dual agents for biological study

“…In order to detect very low contents of nonradioactive speci®c materials without making slices of samples,¯uorescent X-ray tomography (Cesareo & Mascarenhas, 1989;Takeda et al, 1995;Takeda, Maeda et al, 1996) and¯uorescent X-ray computed tomography (FXCT) (Boisseau & Grodzins, 1987;Takeda, Akiba et al, 1996;Takeda et al, 1997Takeda et al, , 1998Takeda et al, , 1999 are being developed. The basic theoretical consideration of FXCT was presented by Hogan et al (1991) and practical reconstruction methods of FXCT have been applied recently (Yuasa et al, 1997a;Rust & Weigelt, 1998).…”