DR migrates to salmon farms

You may not need to go to a hospital or clinic to see the benefits of digital radiography. You can appreciate some of them at your dinner table, according to U.K. researchers.

University of St. Andrews, Scotland, investigators tested a portable direct digital radiography system to assess skeletal deformities in Atlantic salmon. Using the Canon CXDI-31 system, they imaged 230 salmon one and a half times faster than if they had employed traditional x-ray technology, according to Xograph Imaging Systems, which supplied the DR equipment.

Great Britain produced 130,000 tons of farmed salmon in 2003. The x-ray study, involving a number of food-industry companies, is an attempt to ascertain positive anatomic qualities of the U.K. farmed salmon in order to compete with industry leaders such as Norway and Chile.

So the next time you eye that platter of broiled salmon, with its perfect pinkish hue, know that the fish may have undergone modern diagnostic imaging.