From the November 2020 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
It was about 125 years ago when Wilhelm Rontgen discovered X-ray, but the technology behind medical imaging continues to improve. In 2020 novel detectors, increased portability, and improvements to protocol have defined the latest innovations. Radiography has also played an important role in COVID-19 diagnoses. Here, presented in chronological order, are the ten biggest X-ray stories of the year from our Daily News online.
Canon moves Virtual Imaging X-ray business to Canon Medical
Starting January 1, 2020, Canon officially
transferred its X-ray business out of its subsidiary Virtual Imaging and into Canon Medical Systems USA.
The rebrand follows the company’s 2016 acquisition of Toshiba Medical, which put medical imaging technology in the forefront of Canon’s portfolio.
“This strategic move offers customers Canon Medical Systems USA’s world-class and unified experience for equipment purchases, service and education solutions,” Toshio Takiguchi, senior managing executive officer at Canon Inc. and president and CEO of Canon Medical Systems, said in a statement.
The realignment will add the digital radiographic and mobile offerings to Canon Medical Systems USA's current X-ray portfolio of fluoroscopic systems — expanding its present product line.
Self-powered X-ray detector converts X-ray signal directly into electrical signal
In April, researchers in New Mexico and Illinois announced they had
prototyped a self-powering X-ray detector from a unique material that enables medical imaging at a fraction of the radiation exposure from conventional X-rays — and a fraction of the manufacturing cost.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory in Santa Fe and Argonne National Laboratory at the University of Chicago swapped out the usual silicon-based technologies used in detectors with a structure built around a thin film of the mineral perovskite. The result, they reported, is a one hundred-times more sensitive solution that does not require an outside power source.
