#Computed Tomography

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Scientists improve materials for reconstructive and plastic surgery

Researchers from IOCB Prague and their colleagues from Ghent University in Belgium have been working on improving the properties of gelatin-based materials, thereby expanding the possibilities of their use mainly in medicine. In a paper published in ACS Applied Engineering Materials, they have presented 3D-printable materials that can be easily monitored using an X-ray machine or through computed tomography (CT). Gelatin-based materials have been a hot topic of research in the last 10 years because they are straightforward to produce, non-toxic, inexpensive, biodegradable and—most importantly—because they promote cell growth. For this reason, they are pre-eminently used in plastic and reconstructive surgery. After a surgeon places an implant made of such material into a wound, the body gradually breaks it down and replaces it with tissue of its own. These substances thus accelerate wound healing and even enable the remolding of tissues, for example when performing breast reconstruction after mastectomy. In addition, the materials can be used for 3D printing implants tailored to individual patients.

Read more.

[ionizing-zenaida]

Goretober day 8: Xray.

The dirtiest sterile experience of your life. This ain’t an X-ray, or gore, but if you know, you know.

[bpod-bpod]

Mother’s Bugs

This study in mice demonstrates that the maternal microbiome promotes the growth of the placenta and its blood vessels. This image shows reconstructions made using micro-computed tomography of foetal-placental arteries

Read the published research paper here

Image from work by Geoffrey N. Pronovost and colleagues

Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Science Advances, October 2023

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

[radioactiveradley]

A note on reading Axial 'Transverse' CT slices!

First you gotta imagine your patient standing in front of you (i.e., your left is their right)

Then... you knock 'em over

Typical Axial CT slices look 'up' the patient, cranially, from their feet towards their head!

(disclaimer: please do not actually knock your patients over)

[innonurse]

Scientists unveil genome-driven imaging for medical diagnosis

- By InnoNurse Staff -

Methods of imaging like computed tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET) are crucial in diagnosing and pinpointing various illnesses. A recently devised approach allows PET to specifically leverage alterations in the human genome for diagnosis.

Read more at Universität Luzern/Medical Xpress

[cemitadepollo]

I'm trying to get something funny out of the fact that I had to have a tomography taken from me.

So, my torax looked like an amongus.

Like, when the impostor gets them in the game and they get cartoonishly cut in half, that was my first thought when I saw the results. Just straight up played that amongus drip music in my head.

[mripetctnerd]

How fast does a CT scanner spin? Check out this CT scan machine spinning at max speed with no covers!

[thepastisalreadywritten]

X-ray imaging, PET scans, CT scans, and MRIs are various imaging techniques that are used to capture images of the inside of the body. 🩻

X-ray

— detects bone fractures, certain tumors and other abnormal masses, pneumonia, some types of injuries, calcifications, foreign objects, or dental problems.

MRA

— Magnetic Resonance Angiography uses a powerful magnetic field, radio frequency waves, and a computer to evaluate blood vessels and help identify abnormalities.

MRI

— Magnetic Resonance Imaging uses a magnetic field and radio waves to take pictures inside the body.

It is especially helpful to collect pictures of soft tissue such as organs and muscles that don't show up on x-ray examinations

PET scan

— Positron Emission Tomography may be used to evaluate organs and/or tissues for the presence of disease or other conditions.

PET may also be used to evaluate the function of organs, such as the heart or brain.

The most common use of PET is in the detection of cancer and the evaluation of cancer treatment.

CT scan

— Computed Tomography is used to identify disease or injury within various regions of the body.

For example, CT has become a useful screening tool for detecting possible tumors or lesions within the abdomen.

A CT scan of the heart may be ordered when various types of heart disease or abnormalities are suspected.

🎞️: World of Medics

[alsafwa-radiology-center-sharjah]

Precision in Perspective: Discovering CT Scans at Alsafwa Radiology Center in Sharjah UAE

In the realm of medical imaging, computed tomography (CT) scans stand as a beacon of precision, offering invaluable insights into the human body with unparalleled detail and accuracy. At Alsafwa Radiology Center in Sharjah, UAE, CT scans are not just diagnostic tools but gateways to a deeper understanding of health and wellness.

Unraveling the Complexity of CT Scans

CT scans, also known as CAT scans or computed axial tomography, utilize advanced X-ray technology to create detailed cross-sectional images of the body. These images provide physicians with a comprehensive view of internal organs, tissues, and structures, enabling them to diagnose and monitor a wide range of medical conditions with remarkable precision.

The Art of Interpretation

At Alsafwa Radiology Center, CT scans are performed with meticulous attention to detail and interpreted by experienced radiologists with a keen eye for anomalies and abnormalities. From identifying tumors and assessing organ function to detecting fractures and evaluating blood flow, our team is dedicated to uncovering the nuances hidden within each scan.

Advanced Technology for Superior Imaging

Precision begins with technology, and at Alsafwa Radiology Center, we spare no expense in equipping our facility with state-of-the-art CT scanners. These advanced machines boast cutting-edge features such as multi-slice capabilities, low-dose radiation options, and rapid image acquisition, ensuring optimal image quality and patient comfort.

A Commitment to Patient Care

While technology plays a crucial role, it is our commitment to patient care that truly sets us apart. From the moment you step through our doors, you'll be greeted by our friendly and compassionate staff who prioritize your comfort and well-being above all else. Our radiology team takes the time to explain the procedure, address any concerns you may have, and ensure that you feel supported throughout the entire process.

Personalized Approach to Diagnosis

No two patients are alike, and neither are their medical needs. That's why at Alsafwa Radiology Center, we take a personalized approach to diagnosis, tailoring each CT scan to meet the unique requirements of every individual. Whether you're undergoing routine screening, investigating a specific health issue, or monitoring a chronic condition, our team works closely with you and your healthcare provider to ensure that you receive the most accurate and comprehensive results possible.

Empowering Patients with Knowledge

Knowledge is power, and at Alsafwa Radiology Center, we believe in empowering our patients with the information they need to make informed decisions about their health. Following your CT scan, our radiologists will thoroughly review the results with you, explaining any findings and answering any questions you may have. We believe that by fostering open communication and patient engagement, we can help you take control of your health and well-being.

A Beacon of Excellence in Medical Imaging

In a world where precision is paramount, Alsafwa Radiology Center stands as a beacon of excellence in medical imaging. With our state-of-the-art technology, experienced radiologists, and unwavering commitment to patient care, we are proud to offer unparalleled CT scan services in Sharjah, UAE. Whether you're seeking answers to medical concerns, monitoring an existing condition, or simply prioritizing preventive care, you can trust Alsafwa Radiology Center to deliver precision in perspective, every step of the way.

[jcmarchi]

With a new experimental technique, MIT engineers probe the mechanisms of landslides and earthquakes

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/with-a-new-experimental-technique-mit-engineers-probe-the-mechanisms-of-landslides-and-earthquakes/

With a new experimental technique, MIT engineers probe the mechanisms of landslides and earthquakes

Granular materials, those made up of individual pieces, whether grains of sand or coffee beans or pebbles, are the most abundant form of solid matter on Earth. The way these materials move and react to external forces can determine when landslides or earthquakes happen, as well as more mundane events such as how cereal gets clogged coming out of the box. Yet, analyzing the way these flow events take place and what determines their outcomes has been a real challenge, and most research has been confined to two-dimensional experiments that don’t reveal the full picture of how these materials behave.

Now, researchers at MIT have developed a method that allows for detailed 3D experiments that can reveal exactly how forces are transmitted through granular materials, and how the shapes of the grains can dramatically change the outcomes. The new work may lead to better ways of understanding how landslides are triggered, as well as how to control the flow of granular materials in industrial processes. The findings are described in the journal PNAS in a paper by MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering Ruben Juanes and Wei Li SM ’14, PhD ’19, who is now on the faculty at Stony Brook University.

A new technique allows full 3D visualization of the way forces are distributed in a mass of irregularly shaped grains as force is applied.

Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

From soil and sand to flour and sugar, granular materials are ubiquitous. “It’s an everyday item, it’s part of our infrastructure,” says Li. “When we do space exploration, our space vehicles land on granular material. And the failure of granular media can be catastrophic, such as landslides.”

“One major finding of this study is that we provide a microscopic explanation of why a pack of angular particles is stronger than a pack of spheres,” Li says.

Juanes adds, “It is always important, at a fundamental level to understand the overall response of the material. And I can see that moving forward, this can provide a new way to make predictions of when a material will fail.”

Scientific understanding of these materials really began a few decades ago, Juanes explains, with the invention of a way to model their behavior using two-dimensional discs representing how forces are transmitted through a collection of particles. While this provided important new insights, it also faced severe limitations.

In previous work, Li developed a way of making three-dimensional particles through a squeeze-molding technique that produces plastic particles that are free of residual stresses and can be made in virtually any irregular shape. Now, in this latest research, he and Juanes have applied this method to reveal the internal stresses in a granular material as loads are applied, in a fully three-dimensional system that much more accurately represents real-world granular materials.

These particles are photoelastic, Juanes explains, which means that when under stress, they modify any light passing through them according to the amount of stress. “So, if you shine polarized light through it and you stress the material, you can see where that stress change is taking place visually, in the form of a different color and different brightness in the material.”

Such materials have been used for a long time, Juanes says, but “one of the key things that had never been accomplished was the ability to image the stresses of these materials when they are immersed in a fluid, where the fluid can flow through the material itself.”

Being able to do so is important, he stresses, because “porous media of interest — biological porous media, industrial porous media, and geological porous media — they often contain fluid in their pore spaces, and that fluid will be hydraulically transported through those pore openings. And the two phenomena are coupled: how the stress is transmitted and what the pore fluid pressure is.”

The problem was, when using a collection of two-dimensional discs for an experiment, the discs would pack in such a way as to block the fluid completely. Only with a three-dimensional mass of grains would there always be pathways for the fluid to flow through, so that the stresses could be monitored while fluid was moving.

Using this method, they were able to show that “when you compress a granular material, that force is transmitted in the form of what we would call chains, or filaments, that this new technique is able to visualize and depict in three dimensions,” Juanes says.

To get that 3D view, they use a combination of the photoelasticity to illuminate the force chains, along with a method called computed tomography, similar to that used in medical CT scans, to reconstruct a full 3D image from a series of 2,400 flat images taken as the object rotates through 360 degrees.

Because the grains are immersed in a fluid that has exactly the same refractive index as the polyurethane grains themselves, the beads are invisible when light shines through their container if they are not under stress. Then, stress is applied, and when polarized light is shone through, that reveals the stresses as light and color, Juanes says. “What’s really remarkable and exciting is that we’re not imaging the porous medium. We’re imaging the forces that are transmitted through the porous medium. This opens up, I think, a new way to interrogate stress changes in granular materials.” He adds that “this has really been a dream of mine for many years,” and he says it was realized thanks to Li’s work on the project.

Using the method, they were able to demonstrate exactly how it is that irregular, angular grains produce a stronger, more stable material than spherical ones. While this was known empirically, the new technique makes it possible to demonstrate exactly why that is, based on the way the forces are distributed, and will make it possible in future work to study a wide variety of grain types to determine exactly what characteristics are most important in producing stable structures, such as the ballast of railroad beds or the riprap on breakwaters.

Because there has been no way to observe the 3D force chains in such materials, Juanes says, “right now it is very difficult to make predictions as to when a landslide will occur precisely, because we don’t know about the architecture of the force chains for different materials.”

It will take time to develop the method to be able to make such predictions, Li says, but that ultimately could be a significant contribution of this new technique. And many other applications of the method are also possible, even in areas as seemingly unrelated as how fish eggs respond as the fish carrying them moves through the water, or in helping to design new kinds of robotic grippers that can easily adapt to picking up objects of any shape.

The work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Machine learning techniques improve X-ray materials analysis

Researchers of RIKEN at Japan's synchrotron radiation facility, SPring-8 and their collaborators have developed a faster and simpler way to carry out segmentation analysis, a vital process in materials science. The new method was published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials: Methods. Segmentation analysis is used to understand the fine-scale composition of a material. It identifies distinct regions (or 'segments') with specific compositions, structural characteristics, or properties. This helps evaluate the suitability of a material for specific functions, as well as its possible limitations. It can also be used for quality control in material fabrication and for identifying points of weakness when analyzing materials that have failed. Segmentation analysis is very important for synchrotron radiation X-ray computed tomography (SR-CT), which is similar to conventional medical CT scanning but uses intense focused X-rays produced by electrons circulating in a storage ring at nearly the speed of light.

Read more.

[harmeet-saggi]

Understanding MRI Scan, Benefits, Diagnosis, Sideeffects

MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. It's a diagnostic procedure that provides detailed pictures of the inside of the body using a powerful magnet, radio waves, and a computer.

[bpod-bpod]

Frozen Heart

Shape and structure are often essential to life’s tasks – enzymes with specific shapes fit particular molecules like a lock and key, and zooming out, the patterns of cells in tissues and organs offer clues to health, damage and disease. In this detailed 3D scan of a mouse’s heart, each cardiac muscle fibre is coloured based on its orientation within the organ’s microstructure. Normally, taking such a detailed view inside living tissue requires damaging it in some way. But this heart is stained and quickly frozen preserving its details and allowing a version of micro-computed tomography to build an intact 3D picture. The movie’s virtual slices reveal the location of fibrotic regions (blue) – hardened tissue formed after surgery. In humans, cardiac fibrosis can lead to heart failure so studying similar detailed models may allow researchers to test new approaches and drugs to healing hearts.

Written by John Ankers

Video by Arne Maes and colleagues

Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, October 2022

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

[radioactiveradley]

Nyello! I'm B.L.Radley, also known as @radley-writes, also known as 'that person who decided to become a radiographer on a whim literally so they could introduce themselves as Rad the Rad but then got really fucking obsessed with radiography and ology and now wants to commit themselves to several more years of specialised study and student debts to become an Advanced Practitioner in.... MRI, probably, but who the fuck knows'

Important info:

They/it/xe pronouns plz.

'Rad' on this blog refers ONLY to radiographers and surfer-slang. Transphobes begone.

I am a student.

This means:

I am not an expert! I might be wrong about stuff! If you know more than me, please feel free to correct me! I love this topic and want to learn more!

I am not qualified to give out medical advice, and will only say 'go see your doctor if this concerns you!' on this blog.

It's also worth noting that, though I do work part-time in a hospital, doin' the ol' radiography, I am not going to provide funny/embarrassing patient stories. Or any patient stories at all, beyond, perhaps, very, very anonymised anecdotes to help illustrate points. I strongly disagree with mocking patients or posting anything about them without their consent - particularly if it could be traced back to them! This is just a blog where I can scream excitedly about how cool it is that I can look at all the Mushy And Bony Stuff inside you without cutting you open!

(Although sometimes you'll get cut open too <3 Just for funsies <3)

Please feel free to ask me anything, and I will do my best to reply!

Or, uh. Infodump about my hyperfixation. Not sorry.

[oz-oz]

Tomografías y coffe