Tomographic Imaging: Trauma System

There are many situations – including violent assaults, workplace accidents, battlefields and stroke incidents – where rapid access to high-quality 3D imaging is essential to saving lives, limbs or brain tissue. Interventions during the Golden Hour after a traumatic injury have repeatedly been shown to massively increase prospects for the best possible outcomes. With current technology, however, the patient has to be brought to the imaging system, rather than the other way around. “Mobile” tomosynthesis and CT systems are still very large, sometimes needing a vehicle or shipping container for transportation.

Stellarray’s Portable Trauma X-ray Tomography (PTXT) System has been designed to provide the best 3D radiography capabilities in a system that is actually portable, i.e. can be carried by one person or on a reasonably sized drone. PTXT builds on Stellarray’s project for NASA to develop a 3D radiography system that can be carried on space missions, where mass, volume and power are at a premium. It will use similar kinds of sources as the DBT system, but will be modular and extensible through the addition of source-detector pairs. This will enable a kit approach that should prove very useful in rural areas, battlefield medicine, stroke response ambulances and village-based medicine. The system has been designed for high power efficiency, adaptability to various power grids and ruggedness.