MicroDose

For other uses, see Microdosing.

MicroDose is a trademark owned by Philips, purchased from Sectra. It refers to line of mammography equipment advertising a very low radiation dose. This equipment is based on a photon-counting detector for capturing the image.

Photon-counting detector

A photon-counting detector utilizes the discrete nature of X-rays, as it counts individual photons when they are captured in a detector medium. This is in contrast to “pseudo-digital” detectors that integrates photon energy over time, thus in practice measuring an analog signal that in turn is digitized. While the conversion steps from analog to digital signal in a traditional detector introduces thermal noise, quantization errors and loss of information during signal processing, a truly digital detector suffers from none of these weaknesses. A photon-counting detector is capable of capturing close to all information in the signal. This way it is possible to lower the radiation dose to a minimum while preserving or even improving image quality.

Uses

There are today very few commercially available microdose modalities. The first to hit the market was a mammography system, mainly targeted for intense breast screening programs. Breast examinations is one of the most demanding with respect to image quality, as early detection of cancerous changes relies on finding micro-calcifications in the breast tissue. These tiny structures can be perceived by a trained eye, but only as far as the image quality allows. At the same time, the significance of low dose comes particularly apparent in screening programs, as a large part of a population is targeted.

Detector systems use either silicon or Cadmium Telluride as a detector medium.

See also

References

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