The challenges that medical diagnostic x-ray source engineers must meet depend upon the modality. Cardiac-x-ray sources must improve both fluoro and cine high power output while maintaining small physical size and weight. Angiography must have small focal spots for higher magnification work as well as high power capability using the large focal spot. Some filtration is applied to modify the bremsstrahlung spectrum so that maximum contrast can be achieved with contrast-enhancing agents in the patient's body. Computed tomography (CT) sources have design requirements that take into account the source's increasingly rapid circular motion about the patient's body and tight specifications on focal spot motion and drift. The decrease in scan time requires an increase in source power in order to maintain sufficient x-ray photon flux density at the detector elements for proper signal-to-noise. Mammography x-ray sources face a demand for higher power in smaller focal spots at low electron accelerating voltage. Although focal spot sizes approach 0.1 mm, the resolution of small tissue abnormalities remains a current problem. Management of the dose to the patient is a concern that is common to all the modalities.

Date Published: 6 December 2001
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 4502, Advances in Laboratory-based X-Ray Sources and Optics II, (6 December 2001); doi: 10.1117/12.449870

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4502:
Advances in Laboratory-based X-Ray Sources and Optics II
Ali M. Khounsary; Carolyn A. MacDonald, Editor(s)