Heartbeat Synchronized X-Ray Imaging for Cardiac Cycle Resolution
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current x-ray imaging technologies face challenges in capturing clear images of the heart due to its constant movement, leading to blurring and distortion, especially since patients cannot voluntarily control their heartbeats, making it difficult to obtain detailed images of the cardiac cycle.
Innovation Solution
A heartbeat-synchronized imaging system that monitors the patient's heartbeat and adjusts x-ray pulses to correspond with specific moments of the cardiac cycle, allowing for the combination of images across multiple cycles to achieve high temporal resolution without the need for extremely powerful or expensive equipment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If x-ray imaging is performed during heart movement, then the imaging process can be completed relatively quickly, but the resulting images suffer from blurring and distortion due to motion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies periodic action by synchronizing the x-ray pulsing with the periodic cardiac cycle. The system triggers x-ray pulses at specific phases of each heartbeat cycle, accumulating multiple periodic cycles to build a high-resolution composite image. This allows imaging during natural heart movement without motion blur, as each pulse captures a consistent phase of the cardiac cycle across multiple repetitions.
2Measurement precision
If the x-ray pulse rate is increased to capture rapid heart movements, then temporal resolution improves, but the equipment becomes more expensive and powerful
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the cardiac cycle into multiple discrete phases and captures images at each phase separately across different cardiac cycles. Instead of requiring a single high-speed pulse rate, the system uses multiple lower-rate pulses synchronized to specific cardiac phases, accumulating data over time. This segmentation approach achieves high temporal resolution without requiring expensive high-power equipment.
3Manufacturing precision
If multiple x-ray images are combined to improve detail, then image quality improves, but motion artifacts increase due to heart movement during the extended imaging period
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs feedback by using ECG signals to monitor the cardiac cycle in real-time and adjust the timing of x-ray pulses accordingly. The system continuously synchronizes pulse delivery to the detected heart rhythm, ensuring that each accumulated image corresponds to the same phase of the cardiac cycle. This feedback mechanism eliminates motion artifacts while combining multiple images, as the heart's position at each pulse moment is consistent across cycles.
Data Source
AI summary
This disclosure presents systems and methods that synchronize an x-ray imaging system with the heartbeat of a patient. A patient's heartbeat is sensed with a cardiac monitoring unit, and a processing unit generates x-ray pulses that are synchronized with the patient's heartbeat. Based on the real-time heartbeat information, an x-ray imaging device can be operated to obtain x-ray images at various states of the cardiac cycle. The x-ray images taken over several cardiac cycles can be combined based on the relative state of the cardiac cycle in which the images were obtained to achieve high temporal resolution of a cardiac cycle. Additionally, x-ray images obtained at common relative states of the cardiac cycle can be combined to provide higher quality cardiac image or images.