System and method for x-ray fluoroscopic imaging

An apparatus for determining of a cardiac diagnostic characteristic of a patient comprising:

• an x-ray radiation source emitting radiation which is directed through a patient;
• a scintillator receiving x-ray radiation transmitted through the tissue and generating an optical signal correlated with the received radiation and directing the optical signal along a first optical path;
• a plurality of abutting charge coupled devices (CCD) that are optically coupled to the scintillator to receive the optical signal at a plurality of pixels and generate an electronic representation of the soft tissue;
• a fiber optic coupler positioned between the scintillator and the CCDs;
• a controller that is electrically connected to the CCDs such that the controller bins charge from separate pixels to form an electronic representation of a region of interest of the patient to provide an image frame including a first region having a first resolution and including a second region having a second resolution that is higher than the first resolution.

A method of three-dimensional fluoroscopic imaging of cardiac tissue in a patient comprising:

• providing an x-ray radiation source such that radiation emitted by the source is transmitted through a patients cardiac tissue onto a scintillator;
• providing a plurality of abutting silicon circuit sensors, each sensor having a two dimensional array of pixel elements that detect light from the scintillator that is emitted in response to radiation from the x-ray source;
• positioning the patient on a support surface;
• directing x-ray radiation through the region of the patient's cardiac tissue onto the scintillator which emits a spatial intensity pattern of light that is detected by the sensors, the spatial intensity pattern being coupled to the sensors with an optical system;
• binning charge from separate pixel elements of the sensors for readout with an electronic controller;
• and
• forming a three-dimensional image of the cardiac tissue from the binned representation.

An apparatus for fluoroscopic examination of cardiovascular tissue of a patient comprising:

• an x-ray radiation source emitting radiation which is directed through cardiovascular tissue;
• a scintillator receiving radiation transmitted through the tissue and generating an optical signal in response to the received radiation;
• a non-reducing optical coupler that receives the optical signal;
• a binning amorphous silicon image sensor to receive the optical signal from the optical coupler at a plurality of pixels and generate an electronic representation of the tissue;
• and
• a controller that is electrically connected to the imaging sensor, the controller actuating readout of a multi-resolution mode electronic representation from the imaging sensor.