Breaking Boundaries in Stroke Imaging: The World’s First Clinical CT with a Curved Detector

When we set out to design the Micro-X Head CT, our goal was simple: to bring stroke diagnosis to patients faster, whether in an ambulance, a rural clinic, or a hospital emergency bay. But achieving this meant rethinking how CT scanners work at a fundamental level.

In conventional CT scanners, flat-panel detectors rotate around the patient on large gantries. These systems are incredibly effective but they’re also heavy, expensive, and mechanically complex. That makes them impractical for mobile environments where space, weight, and speed are critical.

To build a system compact and lightweight enough for stroke diagnosis on the move, we needed to do something never done before: create a curved detector.

Why Curved Matters

With a curved detector, we could achieve wide angular coverage using a fixed gantry.That meant we could eliminate the need for heavy rotating parts while still capturing high-quality projection images from multiple angles. It was a breakthrough in reducing size, weight, and power requirements, making the Head CT faster, lighter, and more portable.

But here’s the catch: there are no off-the-shelf curved X-ray detectors suitable for clinical CT imaging. Curved detectors have been explored in research or industrial uses (like inspecting pipelines), but not in medical imaging. So, we had to build one from scratch.

Partnering for Innovation

We partnered with FUJIFILM to co-develop a custom solution, leveraging their flexible scintillator substrate - the same material they use in their flat panel detectors. Our team worked closely with theirs to overlap two scintillators into a seamless curved array, paired with a dynamic readout system capable of capturing multiple exposures rapidly. This was crucial for integrating with our proprietary NEX technology and enabling fast reconstruction.

With further refinement, we engineered a new version of the detector using FUJIFILM’s technology, redesigned by Micro-X to be even smaller and lighter to achieve a72% weight reduction from the initial prototype. That’s a huge win for mobility, especially when every gram counts in a portable CT system.

Solving the Complex Challenges

Introducing a curved detector came with its own imaging and mechanical hurdles. Traditional reconstruction algorithms weren’t built to handle curved geometry, leading to inconsistencies and image artifacts. So we teamed up with Johns Hopkins University who are experts in computational imaging to develop new methods that solve these problems head-on.

Combined with Micro-X’s NEX technology, which precisely controls X-ray sources without mechanical motion, we’ve built a system that can acquire multiple projection images in rapid succession, all without a rotating gantry.

A World-First Achievement

To our knowledge, the Micro-X Head CT is the first CT scanner designed for clinical use to feature a curved detector. It’s a major technical milestone - not just for us, but for the future of portable medical imaging.

As an engineer, it’s been incredibly rewarding to push the boundaries of what’s possible in medical imaging. But what’s most meaningful is knowing this technology will have a real-world impact — transforming how and where people receive life-saving stroke care.

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