3D Color X-rays Could Help Spot Deadly Disease Without Surgery

Researchers in New Zealand have captured three-dimensional color X-rays of the human

body, using an innovative tool which will eventually help diagnose cancers and blood

diseases without invasive surgery.

The new scanner has its origins during a tool that contributed to research into the universe’s

fundamental particles and functions very similar to a camera.

It counts subatomic particles as they meet pixels when its electronic shutter is open. that permits it to get high-resolution images of sentimental tissues, including minute disease markers.

“We can figure out details of varied tissues, like bones, fats, water, and cartilage, all functioning together inside the human system,” said Anthony Butler, a radiologist at Otago University in New Zealand, who developed the scanner together with his father, Phil Butler, a physicist.

“It really is just like the upgrade from black-and-white film to painting. It’s an entirely new X-ray

experience.”

In traditional computerized tomography, or CT scans, X-ray beams are measured after

passing through human tissue.

The resulting image appears white where dense bone the tissue has absorbed the beams, and black where softer tissues haven't.

The new scanner matches individual X-ray photon wavelengths to specific materials, such as calcium.

It then assigns a corresponding color to the scanned objects. The tool then translates the info into a three-dimensional image.

The researchers have generated images of ankles and wrists, but eventually decide to scan full human bodies.

The technology could contribute to advances in antineoplastic development and an understanding of heart condition and bone health.

Its creators hope it'll help doctors design personalized treatment plans involving targeted drug therapies or less invasive surgeries.

The new tool could function “a diagnostic road map to a destination,” consistent with Dr. Gary E. Friedlaender, an orthopedic surgeon at Yale University who treats bone cancers found in complex locations, like inside the pelvis.

“It’s about having the ability to first find the reason for somebody’s symptoms, like a tumor, then find the simplest thanks to reaching it with the smallest amount of detours and misadventures,” he said. “We want to attenuate the damage to normal tissues.”

The device was adapted from a pixel-detecting tool that physicists use at the massive Hadron Collider, the underground tunnel with a circumference of nearly 17 miles at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, referred to as CERN.

it had been originally designed to track particles as they moved through the accelerator tube.

“This is that the great thing about it: Technology that was first intended for the sector of high-energy

physics is getting used to enhance society,” said Aurélie Bezos, an engineer at CERN who

promotes the outside application of the research center's technologies.

“It’s very exciting for CERN.” A clinical test to check the new scanner will enroll orthopedic and rheumatology patients in New Zealand in the upcoming months.