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AssigneeDental Imaging Technologies Corporation
InventorsFrederick W. Cowdery, Frank Speranza, Carl Anthony Yacono, Tyler Betteridge
Estimating the term…
A medical imaging device mountable on a support structure having a horizontal surface and at least one substantially vertical surface. The imaging device includes a frame and a gantry having a radiation source and a radiation detector. The gantry is rotatable with respect to the frame. The imaging device includes a first vertical adjustment element and a second vertical adjustment element. The first vertical adjustment element has a first end couplable to the horizontal surface and a second end coupled to the frame, the first end is located a first distance from the second end, and adjustable over a first range. The second vertical adjustment element has a third end coupled to the frame and a fourth end coupled to the gantry. The third end is located a second distance from the fourth end, and is adjustable over a second range, and the fourth end is rotatable with respect to the third end.
A medical imaging device mountable on a support structure having a horizontal surface and at least one substantially vertical surface, the imaging device comprising:
A medical imaging device mountable on a support structure having a horizontal surface and at least one vertical surface, the imaging device comprising:
A medical imaging device mountable on a stationary support structure having a horizontal surface and a vertical surface, the vertical surface having multiple vertically spaced rungs thereon, the medical imaging device comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Related to the mounting of source units and detector units: the source unit or the detector unit being mounted to ceiling
Related to the mounting of source units and detector units: the source unit and the detector unit being coupled by a rigid structure
Specially adapted for specific body parts; specially adapted for specific clinical applications: for dentistry
Displaying means of special interest: adapted to display 3D data
About 7 years 4 months of term left · ends 28 Feb 2034 (estimated)
Embodiments of the invention relate to ceiling mounted medical imaging systems, such as dental imaging systems.
Medical imaging devices are capable of performing a variety of different types of imaging (e.g., radiography, magnetic resonance imaging (“MRI”), computed tomography (“CT”), etc.). For dental imaging systems, such as a conventional dental CT system, a patient often sits upright in a tomography device and an x-ray source and detector are rotated about the patient. The x-ray source and the detector are each mounted to a gantry of the tomography device.
2D Panoramic and 3D Cone Beam Dental X-ray products have become an important tool in many dental offices. However, they are often times very large and consume vast amounts of valuable floor and wall space. A major selling point for dental imaging machines is the image quality, which in turn is at least partially determined by the distance between the radiation detector and the radiation source of the rotating gantry. Unfortunately, to accommodate the larger distances, many high quality units require a base that occupies 16 or more square feet of office floor space. Furthermore, the size and orientations that the patients while imaging is taking place is limited by the size of the bases of these devices. This can be exacerbated by patients using wide wheelchairs and the like.
FIG. 1 illustrates is a perspective view of one embodiment of a medical imaging system.
FIG. 2 illustrates the gantry assembly of the medical imaging system of FIG. 1.
FIGS. 2a and 2b illustrate exemplary embodiments of lateral support mechanisms or assemblies for the gantry assembly shown in FIG. 2.
Before any embodiments of the invention are explained in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and the arrangement of components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the following drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced or of being carried out in various ways.
FIGS. 1-5b illustrate one embodiment of a medical imaging system 10 having a gantry assembly 14 mountable to a ceiling or other elevated horizontal surface 18. The medical imaging system 10 of the present invention is provided to reduce the amount of floor space occupied by similar floor mounted imaging systems that regularly require a large footprint base (usually greater than 16 square feet) to provide the stabilization required to produce a quality image.
Furthermore, the present invention includes a two-step vertical adjustment system providing increased flexibility to compensate for patients of different shapes, sizes and imaging orientations. The two-step system allows the present invention to accommodate various patient orientations (e.g., standing, sitting), as well as oversized wheelchairs.