Multi-Layer Tomography Based on Three Stationary X-Ray Images

Abstract

Serial tomographic sections are frequently needed in clinical medicine to identify abnormal deformations of an organ or a heterogeneous growth of tissue. Many technical developments have been made up to now for this purpose. Tomography, beam scanning x-ray techniques, and tomo-synthetic methods are the representative examples for producing serial x-ray sectional images. However, a tomographic method needs to repeat x-ray exposures for each sectional image, which increases the total x-ray dose in obtaining a sufficient number of serial sections. In addition, it is difficult to keep the patient stationary enought to produce clear simultaneous images of a moveable object. The beam scanning method has not solved these problems, though it is an ingenious way to obtain horizontal sections. The tomo-synthetic technique usually needs many x-ray images taken from different angles to minimize its image noise. Therefore, the usual tomo-synthetic method does not solve the difficulties of excessive x-ray dose and simultaneity.