Local Image Quality Control in Medical Imaging Reducing Radiation Dose
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional automatic dosing in medical imaging, such as CT scans, aims for constant image quality across the entire exposure, which can lead to excessive radiation exposure in regions with high radiation attenuation properties, like the pelvic bone, increasing the dose unnecessarily, particularly affecting sensitive areas like reproductive organs.
Innovation Solution
A method and device that allow for varying image quality within an exposure region by associating desired image qualities with specific body regions, enabling targeted reduction of radiation exposure in sensitive areas while maintaining high quality in other regions, using input parameters like noise proportion and current-time product to control the image acquisition apparatus.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If conventional automatic dosing is used to maintain constant image quality across the entire exposure, then image quality is improved, but radiation dose increases unnecessarily in regions with high attenuation properties
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by allowing different image quality levels in different body regions. Users can specify that critical regions (e.g., liver, heart) require high image quality while non-critical or sensitive regions (e.g., reproductive organs, skin) accept lower image quality. This resolves the contradiction by maintaining high measurement precision only where needed, thereby reducing unnecessary radiation exposure in other areas.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the body into multiple regions of interest, each with independently configurable image quality requirements. By dividing the exposure area into distinct zones (critical organs, non-critical areas, radiation-sensitive regions), the system can apply differentiated dosing strategies to each segment, optimizing the balance between image quality and radiation dose locally rather than uniformly across the entire body.
2Measurement precision
If tube current is increased to maintain constant image quality in high attenuation regions, then image quality is improved, but radiation dose increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system allows users to specify that high image quality (requiring high tube current) is only needed in critical diagnostic regions, while non-critical regions can tolerate lower image quality with reduced tube current. This local differentiation resolves the contradiction by applying high energy consumption only where measurement precision is truly necessary, reducing overall radiation power usage.
3Measurement precision
If uniform dosing is applied across the entire exposure region, then image quality is maintained consistently, but radiation exposure increases in sensitive areas
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables users to mark radiation-sensitive regions (e.g., reproductive organs, skin, pediatric patients) and assign them lower image quality requirements. This creates a non-uniform dosing strategy where sensitive areas receive reduced radiation exposure by accepting lower measurement precision, while critical diagnostic areas maintain high image quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediary layer of user-defined region specifications and quality weighting that mediates between the x-ray source and the patient's body. This intermediary allows flexible adjustment of image quality requirements for different body parts, enabling optimized dosing that protects sensitive areas while maintaining diagnostic quality where needed.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach allows for reduced radiation doses in sensitive areas while maintaining high image quality in critical regions, such as the liver, by modulating the tube current and dose distribution based on local image quality requirements, thereby minimizing exposure to radiation-sensitive body parts.
Implementation Method 1
Predominantly due to different local material properties of the tissue structures located in the beam path, the incident radiation is affected to different degrees in its passage through the body of the patient. In particular, different tissue structures have different radiation attenuation properties.
Implementation Method 2
A detector signal corresponding to the intensity I of the attenuated beams can be generated by an appropriate detector.
Data Source
AI summary
In a method and device for medical imaging, a number of input parameters with regard to an image exposure are imported into a controller of the imaging device, that associate a desired image quality with a defined image exposure region. A number of control parameters are determined corresponding to each input parameter. The controller supplies each control parameter to the image acquisition apparatus for acquiring the image exposure of the examination region with the desired local image quality.