Canon shows medical work at ECR meeting

Japanese imaging firm Canon showed its progress in penetratingthe medical imaging market at this month's European Congress ofRadiology meeting in Vienna. The company displayed a new filmdigitizer, as well as ongoing work on its flat-panel digital detectorprogram.

Canon's new digitizer is called Film Scanner 300 and was shownas a prototype at last year's Radiological Society of North Americameeting. It is a 12-bit scanner based on charge-coupled device(CCD) technology, with a direct DICOM output signal as its mainfeature. Users can import data from Film Scanner 300 directlyinto a DICOM-based PACS network without the need for an interfacebox, according to a Canon spokesperson.

Film Scanner 300, which features a 100-sheet auto feeder, is capableof digitizing four sheets of 2K x 2.5K film a minute. Canon plansto begin selling the device worldwide in the next month.

Further down the R&D pipeline is Canon's flat-panel digitaldisplay technology, which was also shown as a work-in-progressat last year's RSNA meeting (SCAN Special Report 12/96). At theECR conference, Canon displayed the detector along with severalimages collected with the device, and a prototype upright chestx-ray unit using the detector.

Canon's detector is based on amorphous silicon technology, likeseveral other flat-panel detectors under development by othercompanies. The detector collects a 12-bit DICOM-compatible imagein a 43 x 43-cm matrix.

The company has not yet determined whether it will provide thedetectors to OEM partners or if it will build complete systemsitself, according to the spokesperson, who also declined to predictwhen beta units of the detector will be available.