From the November 2022 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
KA Imaging to manufacture world's first dual-energy mobile X-ray system
KA Imaging in Canada announced in April it was putting up nearly $1.5 million for the creation of the world’s first dual-energy mobile X-ray system.
The solution will be equipped with the company’s Reveal 35C dual-energy X-ray detector, a portable detector that utilizes dual energy to create three images in a single exposure: a standard chest X-ray, a soft tissue image without bone, and a bone image without soft tissue. It will be the first made-in-Ontario mobile X-ray scanner, with the company investing $1,488,000.
KA Imaging specializes in the development of X-ray imaging technologies and systems, and has 80 global patents. Its use of dual-energy eliminates motion artifacts and captures images in which the bone and soft tissue do not overlap one another, at the same dose as a standard chest X-ray. With these separate images, radiologists can better assess the lungs and soft tissue without bones obstructing their view and vice versa, and can locate lesions or signs of a disease more easily. Because it is portable and retrofittable, it can be used with any existing X-ray system, including point-of-care units at the patient’s bedside.
The addition of dual-energy capabilities is expected to increase the system’s diagnostic capacity and make it helpful for assessing critical care patients and those in rural and remote communities where access to X-ray machines, CT scanners and MRs is limited.
“Something that shows up in the bone image most likely is calcified, like a calcified nodule, a calcified artery, a calcified vessel; and something that shows up in the soft tissue is soft tissue. In regular X-ray, you have to guess if a nodule is calcified or not. By material discrimination, you add an additional layer of analysis and data for the clinician, and it allows the clinician to make a better decision than they would if they were just looking at regular X-ray imaging, mobile or fixed," Dr. Karim Karim, founder and CTO of KA Imaging, told HCB News.
