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US 9,808,214 B2Granted
Upright X-ray breast imaging with a CT mode, multiple tomosynthesis modes, and a mammography mode
AssigneeHologic, Inc.
InventorsAndrew P. Smith, Jay A. Stein, Ken Defreitas, Ian Shaw, Zhenxue Jing, Loren Niklason, Baorui Ren, Christopher Ruth
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Abstract
A multi-mode system and method for imaging a patient's breast with x-rays in one or more of a CT mode, a narrow-angle tomosynthesis mode, a wide angle tomosynthesis mode, and a mammography mode, using essentially the same equipment, on one or more compressions or immobilizations of the breast.
Claims20
A system for imaging a breast of an upright patient with x-rays comprising:
- a breast compression unit configured to compress a breast of an upright patient to different degrees at different angles relative to the breast;
- an x-ray data acquisition unit configured to operate the system in a computerized tomography (CT) mode to thereby generate a plurality of CT x-ray projection images CTp of the breast taken at different angles;
- and
- an image processing unit configured to computer-process the images CTp to thereby generate a three-dimensional reconstructed image CTr of at least a portion of the breast.
1 more element
A method of imaging a breast of an upright patient with ate x-rays system comprising:
- compressing the breast;
- imaging the breast with x-rays in any subcombination of the following modes, selected by input to the system:
- (a) a computerized tomography (CT) mode generating a plurality of two-dimensional projection x-ray images CTp of the breast taken at respective CT angles to the breast;
- (b) a tomosynthesis mode T generating a plurality of two-dimensional tomosynthesis projection x-ray images Tp of the breast, taken at respective tomosynthesis angles to the breast;
- (c) a mararnography mode M generating one or more two-dimensional projection images Mp of the breast, each using a patient dose approximating that for a conventional mammogram;
- and
- reconstructing three-dimensional images CTr of the breast from said images CTp and slice tomosynthesis images Tr of the breast from said images Tp for respective three-dimensional slices of the imaged breast, said slices having respective thicknesses and orientations;
- and
- displaying selected combinations of two or more of said CTr, Tp, Tr, and Mp images for concurrent viewing in co-registration.
6 more elements
A method of imaging a breast of an upright patient with an x-ray system comprising:
- compressing the breast between an upper compression surface and a lower compression surface;
- imaging the breast with x-rays in the following modes, selected by an input to the system:
- (a) a computerized tomography (CT) mode generating a set of a plurality of two-dimensional projection x-ray images CTp of the breast taken at respective CT angles to the breast;
- and
- (b) a tomosynthesis mode T generating a set of a plurality of two-dimensional tomosynthesis projection x-ray images Tp of the breast taken at respective tomosynthesis angles to the breast;
- computer-processing one or both of the sets of images CTp and Tp to reconstruct one or more three-dimensional (3D) images of the breast;
- and
- forming and displaying display images related to said one or more 3D images of the breast.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.