Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Fluoros
Fluoros
ADC
LENS
OUTPUT
PHOSPHOR APERTURE
FOCUSING DISPLAY
ELECTRODES
ELECTRONS PHOTO-CATHODE
LAYER
INPUT
PHOSPHOR
...CsI
X-RAYS
The Input Screen
The input screen of the II consists of
4 different layers:
(a) vacuum window, a 1 mm
aluminum window that is part of the
vacuum bottle
keeps the air out of the II, and its
curvature is designed to
withstand the force of the air
pressing against it
a vacuum is necessary in all
devices in which electrons are
accelerated across open space
Aluminum Support
Photocathode
Aluminum Support
Photocathode
Aluminum Support
Photocathode
Photocathode
~ 400 electrons
CsI Needles To
Anode Figure courtesy from Jonathan Tucker,
Brooke Army Medical Center, SA, TX
Electron Optics
Electrons are accelerated by an
electric field
Energy of each electron is
substantially increased and this
gives rise to electron gain
Focusing is achieved using an
electronic lens, which requires the
input screen to be a curved surface,
and this results in unavoidable
pincushion distortion of the image
OUTPUT
IMAGE
Analog video systems typically have 30 frames/sec operation, but they work
in an interlaced fashion to reduce flicker, the perception of the image flashing
on and off
The human eye-brain system can detect temporal fluctuations slower than
about 47 images/sec, and therefore at 30 frames/sec flicker would be
perceptible
With interlaced systems, each frame is composed of two fields and each field
is refreshed at a rate of 60 times per second, which is fast enough to avoid
perception of flicker
Lag
Lag means that each new TV image actually contains residual image
information from the last several frames
Lag is good and bad
Lag acts to smooth the quantum noise in the image, but can also cause
motion blurring
Lag
Effect of camera lag.
Angiogram of a
rapidly moving
coronary artery
shows a trailing
"ghost" due to
excessive camera
lag (the direction of
travel is from right to
left).
Video Resolution
Spatial resolution of a video in the vertical direction (top to bottom) of the
TV image is governed by the number of scan lines
By convention, 525 lines are used in N. America for TV
490 lines usable
In the early days of TV, a man named Kell determined that about
70% of theoretical video resolution is appreciated visually, and this
psychophysical effect is now called the Kell factor
490 x 0.7 = 343 lines or 172 line pairs useful for resolution
VERTICAL
DIRECTION
TV LINES ARE
COMPOSED OF DOTS
INTERLACED SCANS
INTERLACED SCANS
TYPICAL MEASURED
RESOLUTION
[ 1023 LINE T.V. ]
FROM GE
FLAT PANEL-LIGHT SENSOR
scan line
FET
Very
Pitch
High Fill
Factor
Fill Factor= Sensitive Area
Pitch x Pitch
FROM GE Pitch
data line
Peripheral Equipment
Photo-spot camera
used to generate images on photographic film, 100-mm cut film or 105-
mm roll film
full resolution of the II system, hardly seen nowadays
Digital photo-spot
high resolution, slow-scan TV cameras in which the TV signal is digitized
and stored in computer memory
Or CCD cameras with 10242 or 20482 pixel formats
near-instantaneous viewing of the image on a video monitor
allows the fluoroscopist to put together a number of images to
demonstrate the anatomy important to the diagnosis
digital images can be printed on a laser imager
Peripheral Equipment
Spot-film devices
attaches to the front of the II, and produces conventional radiographic
screen-film images
better resolution than images produced by II
Cine-radiography cameras
attaches to a port and can record a very rapid sequence of images on 35-
mm film
used in cardiac studies, 30 frames/sec to 120 frames/sec or higher
Last-frame hold
when the fluoroscopist takes his or her foot off the fluoroscopy pedal, rather
than seeing a blank monitor, last-frame-hold enables the last live image to be
shown continuously
useful at training institutions
no unnecessary radiation used on patient
Road-Mapping
Road Mapping
software-enhanced variant of the last-frame-hold feature
side-by-side video monitors, one shows captured image, the other live
image
In angiography, subtracted image can be overlayed over live image to
give the angiographer a vascular “road map” right on the fluoroscopy
image
is useful for advancing catheters through tortuous vessels
Automatic Brightness
Control
Patient Dose
The maximum exposure rate permitted in the US is governed by the Code
of Federal Regulations (CFR), and is overseen by the Center for Devices
and Radiological Health (CDRH), a branch of the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA)
The maximum legal entrance exposure rate for normal fluoroscopy to the
patient is 10 R/min
For specially activated fluoroscopy, the maximum exposure rate allowable
is 20 R/min
Radiation Dose
Patient Dose
Typical entrance exposure rates for
fluoroscopic imaging are
About 1 to 2 R/min for thin (10-
cm) body parts
3 to 5 R/min for the average
patient
8 to 10 R/min for the heavy
patient