| Breast Cancer | Mammography | DBT | Image Reconstruction | Simulations | Multi-beam DBT Prototype System |

DBT Prototype System with Multi-beam X-ray Sources

Although breast tomosynthesis has not been approved by FDA as of yet, extensive attention from academic communities and industrial vendors have been paid to this promising field. The typical breast tomosynthesis prototype systems acquire projection images with the x-ray tube moving along an arc path. This kind of implementation can reutilize the traditional mammography equipments, decrease the cost and reduce the training procedure for the operators. However, the x-ray tube’s movement may introduce blur to tomosynthesis images and cause patients’ discomfort.

A novel multi-beam X-ray source, developed by Zhou et al., has been investigated for breast tomosynthesis applications. The breast tomosynthesis system was built up with fixed multi-beam field-emission X-ray (MBFEX) sources based on unique properties of carbon nanotube electron emitters. Parallel imaging configuration was applied to multi-beam x-ray system design where the path of the x-ray tube lies in a plane that is parallel to the detector plane. Compared with commercial prototype systems, it increases the tomosynthesis imaging speed with simplified system design. With the fast-speed imaging and fixed x-ray sources, it shows great potentials to reduce patients’ discomfort and the motion blur associated with x-ray tube’s movement of typical prototype systems.

Please refer to my papers:
    W. Zhou, X. Qian, J. Lu, O. Zhou, Y. Chen, Multi-beam x-ray source breast tomosynthesis reconstruction with different algorithms, SPIE 2010.
    Y. Chen, W. Zhou, G. Yang, J. Lu and O. Zhou, Breast tomosynthesis reconstruction with a multi-beam x-ray source, SPIE 2009.