Shimadzu Corporation

Masafumi Furuta

Junichi Ohi

Hiromichi Tonami

Masanobu Sato

Kazushige Tachibana

Tetsuo Furumiya

Masayuki Nakazawa

Masakuni Tachi

Mayuka Sakai

An image pickup apparatus for breast examination capable of reliably imaging an entire breast is provided. That is, according to this invention, a breast introduced into a detector ring can be placed reliably in a radiographic field of view of the apparatus. That is, the image pickup apparatus for breast examination according to this invention includes a support at an opening opposite to an opening at a side, where a breast of a patient is inserted, of a through-hole of the detector ring. A tip of the breast introduced into the detector ring is obstructed by this support, and cannot project outside the detector ring but contacts a contact surface located in the radiographic field of view. According to this invention, the tip of the breast does not project outside the radiographic field of view, and the breast introduced in the detector ring can be positioned reliably in the radiographic field of view of the apparatus.

Image pickup apparatus for breast examination

Two detector units and two holding arms are provided. The detector units are each disposed on a part of an arc of a circle surrounding a subject. The holding arms each disposed on the arc hold the detector units individually. The holding arms move independently along the circle surrounding the subject, thereby causing the detector units to move. Consequently, a first detector unit is held with a first holding arm entirely, and a second detector unit is held with a second holding arm entirely. This causes less swing of the detector units achieving a simple configuration.

Positron CT apparatus

A radiation detector for a PET-MR apparatus, has a fastening-strength and a high cooling efficiency relative to a photoelectric conversion element. A holding memberholds a side-periphery and a bottom of a light detectorby a connection element, and is strongly fastened by a connection baseand a gimlet holeand a screw. A light shielding filmis a thin-film and adheres and covers an outer-periphery and the side-periphery of the holding member. The radiation detector has a robust fastening-strength, so that a locational shift of the scintillator blockis prevented. As a result, the radiation detector can detect &#x3b3;-ray data accurately.

Radiation detector

With a mammography PET apparatus, a supporting face includes a detector ring region, and a detector-outside region as an outside area of the detector ring region. The detector ring region is higher than the detector-outside region. An elastic lower-layer mat is disposed on the detector-outside region. An upper-layer mat, softer than the lower-layer mat, is disposed on the detector ring region and the lower-layer mat across a boundary between the detector ring region and the lower-layer mat. Accordingly, an edge of the lower-layer mat harder than the upper-layer mat is covered with the upper-layer mat, leading to alleviation of pain to a subject M caused by the edge of the lower-layer mat.

Nuclear medicine diagnosis apparatus

A nuclear medicine diagnostic apparatus includes a support unit for supporting an inspection object from front, an opening for receiving a breast of the inspection object supported by the support unit, a detector ring opposed to the inspection object across a supporting surface of the support unit for detecting radiation generated from the breast, a chest mat provided around the opening formed in the support unit for supporting the chest of the inspection object, and an outer mat provided outward of the chest mat for supporting the inspection object. The chest mat is formed of a material having a greater sagging rate than the outer mat.

Nuclear medicine diagnostic apparatus

A method of manufacturing radiation tomography apparatus in this invention includes a step of fixing a detector array to a holding member by adjusting relative positions of the detector array and the holding member the base by spacing a scintillator apart from a base through contact of the scintillator of the detector array to a supporting device. Such configuration may realize provision of radiation tomography apparatus with higher spatial resolution by manufacturing a group of detectors having the scintillators of suppressed deviation in arrangement and being arranged regularly upon arranging radiation detectors for forming the group of detectors.

Method of manufacturing radiation tomography apparatus

A radiation detector is provided that allows correction so as to identify incident gamma-ray positions accurately with no influence of afterglow of fluorescence. The radiation detector includes an intensity-data acquiring section for acquiring intensity data representing intensity of fluorescence outputted from a light detector for every temporally-constant sampling interval, and a correction-value acquiring section section for acquiring a correction value used for correction of variations in intensity data resulting from afterglow of the fluorescence. In addition, the radiation detector includes an integrating section for correcting the intensity data using the correction value. This allows correct calculation of the integrated value m with no influence of the afterglow of fluorescence.

Radiation tomography apparatus of this invention has a shield that shields entering of radiation flying from outside of the gantry. The shield is formed of shielding pieces. Consequently, there is no need for manufacturing the shield in a large and expensive furnace. Accordingly, the radiation tomography apparatus may be provided that is easily manufactured and achieves suppressed cost. Moreover, with the radiation tomography apparatus of this invention, maintenance may be performed through removal of the shielding pieces without removing the entire shield.

Radiation tomography apparatus

According to a spurious pulse generator of this invention, integrating circuits are provided at a plurality of stages for carrying out integrating operations about time and outputting a spurious pulse, the integrating circuits being constructed to input a voltage value for controlling a crest value which is a peak swing of the spurious pulse to an amplifier forming an integrating circuit at a most upstream stage when a switching element is ON, and to input a constant voltage value when the switching element is OFF. As a result, the voltage value before ON-state and after ON-state of the switching element does not change but remains a constant voltage value, thereby obtaining a desired spurious pulse.

Spurious pulse generator

A radiation signal-processing unit including a position identifying device for identifying an incident radiation position in a radiation detector; a count data-memory device for storing positional information outputted from the position identifying device, a count ratio-calculation device for calculating a count ratio based on the positional information stored in the count data-memory device, a reference count ratio-memory device for memorizing a reference count ratio as the count ratio calculated under a state where fluorescence to be detected does not overlap each other temporally, and a correction instruction device for reading the reference count ratio from the reference count ratio-memory device and comparing the ratio with the count ratio, thereby instructing execution of correction of a radiation generating position to the position identifying device.

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Kyoto, Japan

Masafumi Furuta