A 3D image of a wrist with a watch showing part of the finger bones in white and soft tissue in red. (Image: MARS Bioimaging Ltd) Like Dorothy coming to Oz, doctors might finally be experiencing their world in color. A new scanner, using technology developed by CERN for detecting subatomic particles, can produce color X-ray scans of the inside of the body, allowing doctors to see soft tissues in unprecedented detail. The technology is set for clinical trials in New Zealand soon.
X-ray Upgrade
Normal X-rays illuminate our insides in shades of grey — hard tissues like bone are white and soft tissues are black. That's because normal detectors only read whether the x-rays are coming through or not. Bone blocks X-rays, so they show up as white; soft tissues don't, so they're black. The new detector was made by New Zealand-based company Medipix. Their tech is based on detectors used by the Large Hadron Collider for measuring particles created by protons smashing together at nearly the speed of light. And it can pick out subtle changes in the energy levels of the incoming X-rays to tell a more detailed story about the types of tissues it passes through. Muscle, fat, connective tissues and more all alter the x-rays in different ways, and the new detector picks up on that.
Paired with algorithms specialized for putting this information together and spitting it back out as cohesive images, doctors can now see a 3-dimensional view of the body where each type of tissue stands out distinctly. The colors themselves aren't necessarily "true" color — they're added in afterwards to distinguish various tissue types — but they do give doctors much more information from a standard x-ray scan than before. The technology could conceivably be used to search for tumors, assess bone and joint health and provide updates on vascular health, among other things. That's pending clinical safety trials, of course, but the technology does offer essentially an upgrade to an existing technique, which might help smooth the process along. It's a positive for doctors, though for the rest of us who might not enjoy seeing the insides of our bodies in high-resolution, well, we might just have to look away.
