Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.V.

Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

Henning Braess

Harald Reiter

Georg Schmitz

Daniel Gagnon

Sabine Mollus

Jürgen Weese

In a diagnostic imaging system (), a monitor () monitors periodic biological cycles of the subject (). A trigger point detector () detects a time (t, t, . . . , tn) of a common, reoccurring reference point (R, R, . . . , Rn) in each periodic cycle of the subject (). A sequence selector () selects a sequence () of nominal sampling segments (Si, S, . . . , Sn). An adjustor () adjusts duration of each nominal sampling segment (Si, S, . . . , Sn) to coincide with the times of detected reference points (R, R, . . . , Rn). A scaling processor () scales each adjusted segment based on a difference in duration between the corresponding nominal (Si, S, . . . , Sn) and adjusted sampling segments (S'i, S&#x2032;, . . . , S&#x2032;n).

ECG-gated temporal sampling in cardiac kinetic modeling

A device for locally resolved control of a radiation dose applied with a pulsed particle beam in particle beam therapy, with a processing unit, which is set up to detect continuously a count rate of x-ray quanta measured with a positron emission tomograph and to determine the applied radiation dose from the pattern of the measured count rate, by determining by computation from the measured pattern of the count rate the time intervals, in which an interaction of the particle beam takes place at the application site and by rejecting these time intervals for the determination of the applied radiation dose.

Device and method for locally resolved control of a radiation dose

An image system, notably an X-ray system and an ultrasound system, is provided in which images or sequences of images are generated and used to automatically change or optimize the operational behavior of individual image system components. Measurement fields are defined in the images of an image sequence by means of a data processing unit. Information is extracted from the measurement fields in order to adapt the system components. More specifically, in the course of a sequence of images the measurement fields are adapted or shifted in conformity with the motion of objects.

System and method with automatically optimized imaging

With the aid of an X-ray CT (), the spatial position (r) of a body cavity that is filled with blood is determined, which for example can be a part of the aorta or of the left ventricle of the heart of a patient (). Subsequently, a TOF-PET unit that includes two detector elements () is positioned to place a predefined volume element () in the blood filled body cavity. From pairs of annihilation quanta received from the volume element () a concentration of the tracer in this volume element () and thus in the blood is determined. This concentration can for example be used within the framework of pharmaco-kinetic examinations which are carried out on the patient () with the aid of a three-dimensional PET unit ().

Device and method for determining the concentration of a tracer in blood

The invention relates to a method and a unit for automatically adjusting a collimator (). In this connection, a region () of interest inside the body is determined in an application-specific way from an analysis of first X-ray pictures, and the collimator () is then adjusted thereon. The region () of interest can, in particular, be chosen to be large enough for the irradiation field to cover all those positions of an organ () of interest that occur as a result of heartbeat and/or respiration. Preferably, a movement estimate' is undertaken during a current examination in order to be able to readjust the collimator () if necessary. If the region of interest cannot be localized, the collimator () is opened to a standard adjustment.

X-ray unit having an automatically adjustable collimator

The invention relates to a method and a device for adapting a radiation dose of an X-ray source ( ). The X-ray source ( ) irradiates an object to be examined, for example, a patient ( ), so as to form an X-ray image ( ) on an X-ray detector ( ). The X-ray image ( ) is subdivided into image regions (A-I) and each time the brightest image region is successively separated from the remaining image regions in an iterative method if its mean grey value forms an indication of the presence of direct radiation ( ) in the relevant image region. The image regions still remaining at the end of the iteration operation correspond to an image region of interest which can be taken into account by a control unit ( ) so as to calculate the optimum radiation dose.

Device and method for adapting the radiation dose of an X-ray source

The invention relates to a method and a device for the processing of X-ray images which can be used notably in medical fluoroscopy procedures since they keep the overall radiation load for a patient low. Processing of and detail enhancement in the X-ray images is preferably performed by means of a pattern matching algorithm which necessitates prior knowledge of a pattern of the detail of interest. In order to extract this pattern, at least one single image (HD) is formed ( ) with a higher dose rate, said single image having an image quality which suffices for the automatic ( ) or non-automatic ( ) recognition of the pattern. The information extracted from this single image serves as a basis for the evaluation of X-ray images (LD ) formed with a lower dose rate.

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Aachen, Germany

Henning Braess