Rotating X-Ray Collimating Slit for Line-Scan Dual-Energy Medical Imaging

A rotating slit system has been designed and tested which can effectively translate a fan-shaped X-ray beam at the same average speed and in the same direction of travel as a patient moving continuously during a line-scan dual-energy medical imaging procedure. The slit has been shown to eliminate the artifacts due to bone in logarithmically subtracted images obtained with monochromatic X-ray beams derived from synchrotron radiation, where one beam is just above and the other just below the K-edge of iodine. Images of iodine-containing phantoms and in vivo canine images after intravenous iodine injection show vessel detail without artifacts due to bone. Corresponding images taken without the rotating slit have severe artifacts.