High resolution lenses for machine vision — standard and custom lens design
CT Scanner: A Paramount Discovery
High Resolution Lenses for machine vision, instrumentation, inspection and vibration-sensitive applications. Standard and custom hi-res lens assemblies.
CT Scanner Lenses
With CT becoming a prime diagnostic tool for radiologists, its advancements have been phenomenal. Discovery CT750 HD from GE Healthcare seems to be an excellent barometer of CT’s success, going by the testimony given by Dr Srinivas Desai, Head of Department, Imaging & Interventional Radiology, Jaslok Hospital & Research Center, Mumbai.
T’s Success Saga
The advent and evolution of Computed Tomography (CT) has been one of the milestones in the growth trajectory of diagnostic care. It has come a long way from the time when Godfrey Hounsfield introduced CT scanning into medical practice for the first time at the Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, London with the help of a prototype scanner. Over the last 40 years, the improvements in CT’s speed, patient comfort, and resolution has been phenomenal, thanks to the progress of science and technology.
The ‘Dual’ Progress
The CT scanner, hailed as one of the most revolutionary developments in medical imaging, is constantly evolving as a result of the remarkable research and developmental efforts being directed towards providing excellent image quality. The ‘dual energy’, a novel and rapidly growing imaging procedure is an example in case. It enhances CT scanning by providing imperative functional and precise information about the behavior of substances at different energies, the capability to produce virtual unenhanced datasets, and better discovery of iodine-containing substances on low-energy images. This in turn makes many clinical applications viable since knowing how a substance acts at two different energies can help accumulate information about tissue composition that is way ahead of what is attainable through single-energy techniques. Thus, dual energy has played a pivotal role in ushering in a new era of CT Imaging.
Dawn of the GSI Era
One such dual energy CT scanner is Discovery CT750 HD from GE Healthcare which is also the world’s first High Definition CT Scanner. It is now possible to image the whole body at 230 microns resolution made possible with the HD mode on this CT scanner. It is a machine which integrates the dual energy technology as well as gemstone spectral imaging (GSI). Introduced by GE Healthcare, GSI is a dual-energy scan mode which obtains data of an object by swiftly switching between two different energy levels in less than half a millisecond. It produces two sets of information simultaneously, high energy and low energy, about the chemical composition of body materials. This information helps clinicians separate substances like iodine, calcium and water as well as enhancing his prognosis by making characterization of pathology easier.
Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai is one of the reputed hospitals using this machine and Dr Srinivas Desai, Head of Department, Imaging & Interventional Radiology, Jaslok Hospital & Research Center, Mumbai and his team use this CT scanner regularly for his patients and have conducted more than 4000 scans on the machine so far. He gives rave reviews to both, the machine and the technology that powers it. “It is a totally revolutionary product,” he says CT CT Technologies Continue To Evolve
Since the days of the single slice scanners, CT technologies have been moving steadily forward and a recent revolution in medical imaging technologies; dual energy CT from polychromatic imaging to monochromatic imaging. It’s been discovered that gemstones used as a detector provide enhanced contrast resolution.
With the new technology, patients can undergo a CT scan at a lower dose of radiation and it cuts back on time and effort for the physicians as well because the new CT scanner takes less than 25 seconds to complete a full body scan where traditional scanners need upwards of 15 minutes per patient. The accuracy of the new dual energy CTs are also more accurate than traditional methods providing the radiologists an enhanced tool for diagnosis.
A study shows that the “capability of the machine to read different atomic numbers on CT and measure them on a reader, giving value to each atom on our body is one of the best features of the device which will revolutionize CT scanning.” Understanding the chemical structure of a calculus is crucial when determining a treatment modality. Its use in medical diagnosis for myriad diseases such as renal stones, cancerous lesions in the lung, liver, pancreas and kidneys, gout, connective tissue disorders and more will lead to better treatment for the patient and could lead to earlier detection of certain diseases.
Universe Optics provides standard and custom lens assemblies for medical imaging and diagnostic cameras.