Shimadzu Corporation

National Institute of Radiological Sciences

National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology

Hamamatsu-photonics K.k.

National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology

Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation

Shumadzu Corporation

Keishi Kitamura

Nobuya Hashizume

Takahiro Nishimoto

Yuichi Kimura

Yoshihiro Yamada

Iwao Kanno

Chie Seki

Masanobu Sato

Hideo Murayama

Tetsuro Mizuta

Tetsuya Kobayashi

Masami Maekawa

Mayuka Yoshizawa

Taiga Yamaya

Takaji Yamashita

Tomoaki Tsuda

Junichi Ohi

Eiji Yoshida

Naoko Inadama

Ayako Akazawa

Takashi Yamada

Yoshiyuki Yamakawa

Ichiro Oda

Keiji Shimizu

Kengo Shibuya

Koji Shimizu

Munehiro Takahashi

Yuichi Inaoka

Michio Senda

Hiroshi Toyama

Keiichi Matsumoto

Upon blood collection with a disclosed blood collecting apparatus, a part of a flow path adjacent to a suction drain mechanism is filled with a liquid different from the blood. A gas is inserted in the flow path between the liquid with which the part of the flow path adjacent to the suction drain mechanism is filled and a target blood to be collected. The suction drain mechanism pushes and pulls the gas by pushing and pulling the liquid during a standby time between collection and next collection, thereby controlling movement of the target blood. The suction drain mechanism pushes and pulls the liquid and the gas during the standby time, whereby the target blood is continuously moved. This allows prevention of coagulation of the target blood in the flow path.

Liquid controlling method

A suction drain device of a disclosed liquid collecting apparatus actively pushes and pulls blood. This achieves liquid collection at high speed even under decreased pressure depending on a physiological state of an animal. Moreover, the liquid collecting apparatus includes a first flow path and a second flow path having a given length. Accordingly, the flow path with a given length set in advance and thus a known volume allows collection of a given amount volume of blood without measuring a length and an amount of blood using a volume measuring device. Accordingly, no need of the measuring device allows reduction in size of the liquid collecting apparatus. Consequently, the liquid collecting apparatus can be installed adjacent to the animal to achieve reduction in dead volume. Moreover, blood is flown to a fourth flow path branched with a connecting terminal, and is also flown to the second flow path branched with a connecting terminal. The blood flown in the second flow path is collected at the highest priority. This obtains collection of fresh blood from a collecting source as a blood supply source.

Liquid collecting apparatus and liquid collecting method

Sensitivity correction for multiple &#x3b3; radiation detectors is performed by use of sensitivity coefficients obtained through a first sensitivity coefficient calculation step for obtaining sensitivity coefficients, classified according to sensitivity factors, on the basis of coincidence counting data collected as a result of detection of &#x3b3; radiation emitted from a rotated rod-shaped calibration radiation source, and through a third sensitivity coefficient calculation step for obtaining sensitivity coefficients derived from a geometrical arrangement on the basis of coincidence counting data collected in a state where arrangement of the &#x3b3; radiation detectors is changed. A re-constructed image is obtained on the basis of data acquired after the sensitivity correction is finished.

Radiation detecting element sensitivity correction method and radiation tomography device

A boundary calculating unit is provided for determining boundaries between separated plasma and blood cell or air and plasma whose image is picked up by an image pickup unit. With such boundary calculating unit provided, the boundaries between the separated plasma and blood cell or air and plasma can be determined, and areas of the separated air, plasma, and blood cell can be determined accurately. Particularly, a straight line drawing unit is provided for drawing, on the image picked up, a plurality of straight lines parallel to grooves in a disk which performs plasma separation. The boundary calculating unit can easily determine the boundaries by determining the boundaries based on a profile of the plurality of straight lines drawn by the straight line drawing unit.

Measuring system capable of separating liquid and determining boundary of separated liquid

In a reconstruction processing (S), reconstruction processing is performed to list mode data to firstly capture a reconstruction image. Then, in a projection step (S), the reconstruction image obtained in the reconstruction processing step is projected to capture a projection image. In a scatter component extracting step S, low-frequency components are extracted from the projection image obtained in the projection step to obtain scatter components. Even when the data contains a missing region, the reconstruction processing unlikely to be influenced by the missing region suppresses the influence by the missing, and the resultant reconstruction image is projected. Consequently, the projection image having dummy data being interpolated to the missing region is obtainable. As a result, projection from the list mode data through the reconstruction image achieves the projection image with no missing data. Accordingly, precious estimation of the scatter components is obtainable.

Scatter component estimating method

A cross-sectional area calculation section calculates a cross-sectional area of a subject as physical quantity with respect to a size of the subject, and an NEC calculation section calculates a noise equivalent count NEC as physical quantity for evaluating an image. The C-NEC calculation section calculates a noise equivalent count per unit area C-NEC as physical quantity for evaluating an image as per size of the subject in accordance with the cross-sectional area of the subject calculated in the cross-sectional area calculation section and the noise equivalent count NEC calculated in the NEC calculation section. Accordingly, the noise equivalent count per unit area C-NEC is calculated as noted above, whereby an index may be determined that is independent of the cross-sectional area of the subject in evaluating the image.

Tomographic equipment, imaging system provided therewith, and imaging data acquisition method

A PET apparatus and a processing method according in this invention carry out arithmetic processes in parallel, in steps S4 (forward projection) and S5 (back projection), for every LOR, on list data (created from event data obtained by detecting gamma rays), and can therefore be applied to other arithmetic mechanisms and have versatility. Since parallel processing is carried out on the list data and the parallel processing is carried out in each of steps S4 (forward projection) and S5 (back projection), a competition for memory can be prevented to realize an improvement in speed. As a result, high versatility and an improvement in speed of the calculations can be attained.

Data processing method for nuclear medicine, and a nuclear medicine diagnostic apparatus

A blood collecting apparatus includes a cleaning solution piping. The cleaning solution piping feeds into a flow path a heparin solution which is a liquid other than blood to be measured, in order to return the blood present in the flow path to a catheter disposed upstream of a blood inlet of the flow path. Thus, the blood having flowed into the flow path in an amount more than is necessary for blood collection, which corresponds to a portion returned to the upstream catheter of the blood to be measured present in the flow path, can be used in a next blood collection. As a result, the amount of collected blood can be reduced. The liquid to be measured is separated apart by means of a gas, and the flow path is cleaned in a way to leave no impurities in the flow path, thereby preventing impurities from mixing into the liquid to be measured.

Liquid collecting system and a method therefor

A detector ring of radiation tomography apparatus according to this invention has a fracture portion having no scintillation counter crystal arranged therein. Moreover, the radiation tomography apparatus according to this invention includes a correlated data complementation section. The correlated data complementation section forms correlated data when assuming that a first scintillation counter crystal actually provided in the detector ring is in the fracture portion, and additionally stores it to a correlated data storing section, thereby complementing correlated data in the fracture portion. As noted above, the correlated data complementation section obtains positional information under assumption that the scintillation counter crystals are in the fracture portion and a corresponding number of coincident events. Consequently, this invention may realize acquisition of faithful detecting efficiencies in the scintillation counter crystals. Therefore, the radiation tomography apparatus may be provided that allows creation of radiological images suitable for diagnosis.

Radiation tomography apparatus

A radiation detecting apparatus of this invention includes an arithmetic processing device which carries out arithmetic processes for drawing boundaries based on peaks of signal strengths and separating respective positions by the boundaries, and for determining, by using spatial periodicity of the peaks, the number of peaks having failed to be separated, with a plurality of peaks connecting to each other. If the separation fails with a plurality of peaks connecting to each other, the number of peaks in error is determined using spatial periodicity of the peaks. Thus, by using spatial periodicity of the peaks, the number of peaks in error can be determined and boundaries can be set easily. As a result, incident positions can also be discriminated easily, and detecting positions of radiation can be determined easily.

Two-dimensional position map correcting method, and radiation detecting apparatus

The mammographic apparatus of this invention maintains peripheral portions of the breast area Ma of the sternal plate of a patient M in contact with a sternal plate contact boxduring radiography for RI distribution images of the breast area Ma of the patient M. Since the body motion accompanying respiration of the patient M shifts from the breast side to the back side, the motion of the breast area Ma of the patient M accompanying respiration of the patient M is suppressed easily. In addition, since radiography for RI distribution images is carried out with the patient M in a seated position seated on a seating unit, the apparatus is compact and can installed in a limited area, compared with an apparatus that carries out radiography for RI distribution images with a patient in a sleeping position lying on her back or on a side on a top board.

Mammographic apparatus

A blood collecting apparatus includes a main flow path and a pressure generator. The pressure generator is provided in an intermediate position of the main flow path to insert a gas as separators at designated predetermined intervals, thereby to take out blood to be measured, as separated in a time series. The blood can be taken out in minute volumes by inserting the separators consisting of the gas while feeding the blood continuously into the main flow path in this way. And consumption of the blood can be held down, and the amount of collected blood can be minimized. Since the operation to insert the separators is excellent in speed, repeated collection in a short time, i.e. frequency of blood collection, can be secured.

Measuring apparatus, and liquid collecting and measuring system having the same

A radiation detecting apparatus of this invention includes an arithmetic processing device which has a first adding step for adding signal strengths in one portion of a two-dimensional position map, draws respective boundaries based on results of addition in the first adding step, and corrects the two-dimensional position map based on signal strengths enclosed by these boundaries. The signal strengths of one portion of the two-dimensional position map, and not all the areas of the two-dimensional position map, are added. As a result, incident positions can be discriminated efficiently, and radiation detecting positions can be determined efficiently.

Two-dimensional position map correcting method

Upon detection of radiation by using a (three-dimensional) detector capable of distinguishing a detection position in a depth direction and energy, an energy window for distinguishing between a signal and noise is changed depending on the detection position in the depth direction, thus making it possible to obtain scattering components inside the detector. Alternatively, a weight is given to a detection event depending on the detection position in the depth direction and energy information to obtain scattering components inside the detector. Thereby, scattering components inside the detector can be obtained to increase the sensitivity of the detector. In this case, different detecting elements can be used depending on the detection position in the depth direction.

Radiation detecting method utilizing energy information and positional information and equipment thereof

In a state in which a subject is absent, blank data is collected by a self-radioactivity element typified by Lu-176 (S1). In a state in which the subject is present, transmission data is collected by the self-radioactivity element (S2). Emission data is collected by &#x3b3; rays emitted from the subject injected with a radiopharmaceutical (S3). Absorption-corrected data is calculated based on the blank data and the transmission data (S4 to S7), and the emission data is absorption-corrected using the absorption-corrected data (S8). Although such background data obtained by the self-radioactivity is originally abandoned, the background data is rather used for the absorption-corrected data. Stable absorption correction can be thereby conducted.

Nuclear medicine diagnosis device, form tomography diagnosis device, nuclear medicine data arithmetic processing method, and form tomogram arithmetic processing method

Growing community of inventors

Kyoto, Japan

Keishi Kitamura