Texas company adapts positioner for use in digital radiography

Detector manufacturers integrate new device

Options for end-users interested in digital radiography are expanding due to the efforts of Millennium Technologies of Canyon Lake, TX. The company has developed a radiographic positioner, called the MXD100, that can accommodate a variety of different digital detectors and may eventually be retrofitted for conventional buckys. The positioner affords unprecedented flexibility, according to Rick Ebling, CEO of Millennium.

"This design allows you to rotate the whole apparatus," he said. "No other design on the market can do this."

The MXD100, equipped with an InfiMed Stingray detector, is scheduled for its first clinical installation this month. In a best-case scenario, the company could eventually sell 10 positioners per month, Ebling said.

The makers of digital detectors will sell the product through their own dealers, marketing finished devices to hospitals, medical clinics, and private medical offices. Millennium so far has cut agreements to supply its positioner to InfiMed, Edge Medical, and Cannon Medical. Other manufacturers may be added in the future, Ebling said. This group could include companies in conventional radiography, if Millennium adapts its device to handle film-based buckys.

The MXD100 comprises a movable table and C-arm assembly that holds the x-ray tube and detector. Equipped with one of several different digital detectors, the price of the finished product ranges from $200,000 to $300,000.

"The positioner allows placement of the receptor under the table where the bucky would normally be," Ebling said. "But you can also conduct lateral examinations. Or you can remove the table for upright chest work and image all the way down to the knees."

The positioner has been a long time coming. An initial design was developed by Modular X-Ray Device, which is based in South Africa. This predecessor, according to Ebling, was developed in concert with a World Health Organization initiative to create an inexpensive x-ray positioner for use in poor countries.

Millennium got involved in 2002, hoping to come up with a single-detector design that eliminated the costly overhead tube crane.