Accelerated erasure of a selenium based X-ray imaging system

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It is estimated that worldwide approximately 1.7 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer per year. Mammography is the gold standard for detection of this disease. In countries where breast cancer screening with mammography is not commonly practised, cancers are more frequently detected when they are already at an advanced stage and prognosis is poor. XLV Diagnostics Inc. was created to develop a low cost mammography system to expand the reach of mammography screening. XLV's technology will be attractive in emerging markets, such as China, India and Brazil, where breast cancer cases are outpacing access to image based diagnostic technology, as well as in low resources areas within Canada. This low cost high resolution technology may also prove useful in future radiologic applications such as extremity imaging and bone fracture assessment. XLV digital technology, conceived by Canadian scientists, offers a substantial decrease in cost over traditional flat panel mammography detectors by eliminating the need for large area transistor arrays and expensive, high density, low noise electronics. Instead a thin liquid crystal layer is positioned between an amorphous selenium layer and an optical scanner based on consumer electronics technology. In addition to XLV supplying complete digital mammography systems, it will also be possible to upgrade existing analogue screen-film units to digital by replacing the screen-film assembly with modular XLV digital sensors. XLV will be working with Sunnybrook Research Institute to develop a means to accelerate charge erasure in their selenium based liquid crystal mammography system, a key limitation in the current design. This will allow high quality mammograms to be acquired with increased patient throughput. Ultimately, the successful development of this novel technology can then be applied to the development of other low cost, high resolution, digital x-ray systems.