US-12616375-B2 - Apparatus and method for detecting cancerous mass of breast via electromagnetic radiation by computer controlled emitter and detector of radiation with window and optional collimator and motor

US12616375B2US 12616375 B2US12616375 B2US 12616375B2US-12616375-B2

Abstract

A method to form images of internal parts of objects that are of such a nature that images are smeared out due to scattering. The method consists in using isolated beams of radiation along specific, chosen directions, then separating radiation that have not suffered scattering events, from the radiation that have suffered scattering events. The directions may be fixed either by having a multiplicity of radiation emitters along several directions or by moving one or more radiation emitter, or a combination of these. Collimators may also be used to select the direction of radiation propagation. The invention also discloses transparent windows pressed against the object, which serves to keep the incident radiation along a known direction. The radiation that suffered scattering may be also used to make a separate images of the internal parts of the object.

Inventors

Gunnar Erik Skulason
Sergio Lara Pereira Monteiro

Assignees

Gunnar Erik Skulason
Sergio Lara Pereira Monteiro

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20240902

Claims (12)

1 . A method of detecting an internal structure in an object, comprising: emitting a radiation beam, by at least one radiation beam emitter, each radiation beam along a propagation direction of emission for each of the at least one radiation beam emitter and with an energy intensity that has an initial numerical value, the object having a near side near the radiation beam emitter and a far side farther from the radiation beam emitter than the near side, the object having a near surface near the radiation beam emitter and a far surface farther from the radiation beam emitter than the near surface, detecting and measuring, by at least one radiation detector, the energy intensity of the radiation beam; supporting, by a first support structure, the at least one radiation beam emitter, the at least one radiation detector, in fixed place with respect to the object, the first support structure physically attached to the object and in fixed position with respect to the object, at least one first window fixed at a perpendicular direction to the propagating direction of emission at the near side, the at least first window having a near side which is closer to the radiation beam emitter, and a far side, which is farther from the radiation beam emitter as compared with the near side, wherein the at least first window is pressing against the near side of the object, causing that the near side of the object conforms in shape to the at least first window, wherein the radiation beam propagating along the propagating direction of emission is perpendicular to the near side of the at least first window, perpendicular to the far side of the at least first window, and perpendicular to the near side of the object that conformed to the far side of the at least first window which the at least first window configuration therefore provides normal incidence at both sides of the at least first window and normal incidence for the object, with an added collimator in front of the radiation detector, wherein the collimator is oriented along the propagation direction of emission, which defines a collimating direction, wherein the collimator selects radiation that travels only along the collimating direction which is along the propagation direction of the radiation beam, to enter the radiation detector along the collimating direction; performing, by a computer that is connected to the at least one the radiation beam emitter and the at least one radiation detector, the following sequence, 1) selecting and turning on one of the radiation beam emitters and the opposite radiation detector, which causes that a direction along a line of incidence is chosen among one of the propagating directions of emission of at least one of the radiation beam emitters, 2) emitting the radiation beam along the line of incidence and from the near side of the object, 3) measuring the radiation beam on the far side of the object, along the same line of incidence, repeating sequence 1 to 3 until all the directions along all lines of incidence are selected, when process stops; wherein the computer is configured for storing in the computer memory all the values from the radiation beam on the far side of the object and calculating using a co-ordinate system, the magnitudes of the measured radiations at step 3 for one or both the same line of incidence and/or along a plurality of different lines or sum over several different lines; wherein after calculation of all the measured radiations along all used lines of incidence and along one or more different lines, the computer is further configured to generate and display an image which is a visual display of the absorption along all used the lines of incidence and/or along one or more different lines, and moreover, that each image point is determined exclusively as the measurement along a particular the line of incidence and not as a calculation or comparison with other the lines of incidence.
2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the computer is configured for storing in a computer memory: (1) information of line of incidence and coordinates of central detector pixel using any coordinate system, and (2) energies measured along the line of incidence and off-line of incidence.
3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the first support structure is a conically shaped structure.
4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the object is a cancerous mass in a breast.
5 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the object is excess blood in the cancerous mass.
6 . The method of claim 1 , where a pre-selected set of the lines of incidence are located around the object.
7 . The method of claim 1 , where a pre-selected set of the lines of incidence that pierce the object are randomly selected.
8 . The method of claim 1 , where a pre-selected set of the lines of incidence that pierce the object are evenly distributed around the object.
9 . The method of claim 1 , with at least one second window fixed in a perpendicular direction to the collimator at the far side of the object.
10 . The method of claim 1 , where the added collimator is a cylindrical structure aligned along the propagation direction of emission.
11 . The method of claim 1 where the energy intensity of the radiation beam decreases along its the propagation direction of emission.
12 . The method of claim 1 where step 1) of the sequence also includes turning on some of the adjoining radiation detectors and step 3) of the sequence also includes turning on one or more different lines or sum over several different lines.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This patent application is a divisional patent application to patent application originally titled “Method and means to make infrared images of the female breast, other human organs and other objects—2”, titled changed to “Method for detecting cancerous mass of breast via infrared by computer controlled motor for emitter and detector with collimator and window”, application Ser. No. 17/676,000, filing date Feb. 18, 2022, currently allowed, which is a divisional patent application to patent application “Method and means to make infrared image of the female breast, other human organs and other objects”, application Ser. No. 16/931,407, filing date Jul. 16, 2020, issued with U.S. Pat. No. 11,291,371, on Apr. 5, 2022, same inventors as this one. This application is related to the famous U.S. Pat. No. 5,590,169, entitled “Radiation imaging system”, issued Dec. 31, 1996 to Sergio Lara Pereira Monteiro. It is also related to applied patents Ser. No. 12/586,562, filed 2009 Sep. 24, entitled “Method and means for connecting a large number of electrodes to a measuring device”, applied patent Ser. No. 12/586,763, filed 2009 Sep. 28, entitled “Method and means for connecting and controlling a large number of contacts for electrical cell stimulation in living organisms”, and applied patent Ser. No. 12/657,393, filed 2010 Jan. 20, entitled “Method for transferring images with incoherent randomly arranged fiber optical bundle and for displaying images with randomly arranged pixels”, and applied patent Ser. No. 13/053,137, filed 2011 Mar. 21, entitled “Method and means to address and make use of multiple electrodes for measurements and electrical stimulation in neurons and other cells including brain and heart”, which are incorporated by reference in their entirety. This invention relates to method and means to screen for cancer and also to act as an accessory to confirmation of cancer detected by other means, as breast screening with mammography (X-ray) and ultrasound. This invention discloses a method and a means to use infrared radiation (also known as infrared light or simply infrared) to detect the possible presence of cancerous mass, it being based on the detection of the increased blood supply at the suspicious volume, which occurs as a consequence of a process known in medicine as angiogenesis. Infrared radiation is preferable for the device disclosed in this patent application, but ordinary red light, particularly what is known in optics as deep red (at the end of the visible spectrum, near in wavelength and photon energy to the infrared) is also a possibility. Red visible light offers the advantage of easiness of work, when compared with the infrared light, because the operator can see the beam directly, which is not possible when the device operates with infrared radiation, which is invisible for humans, so the operator must rely exclusively on what is displayed on a (computer) monitor screen. This invention relates to infrared images (by this we mean images obtained with infrared radiation, a convention we will be using throughout this patent document), as opposed to visible light images. The more correct name “infrared radiation” is often avoided due to the large number of people that gets afraid of the word “radiation”, which is likely to be the reason why infrared radiation is also known as infrared “light”, which is an incorrect word in this case but a word that is sometimes used to avoid scaring people with the word “radiation”, which here is used with its physics meaning of electromagnetic radiation. In physics, electro-magnetic radiation encompass anything from radio waves, micro-waves used for cooking, infrared, ordinary visible light, ultra-violet, X-ray and gamma-rays. When we mention infrared radiation it has nothing whatsoever to do with ionizing radiation, which is cancer causing, generally speaking being the photons carrying energy equal to or larger than ultra-violet photons. So dear reader, though the inventors will avoid the use of radiation in this document, it may enter here occasionally, and when it happens it has nothing to do with cancer-causing photons. The images we are referring here includes images of parts easily accessible, as the women's breast (well, not so widely accessible . . . ), and also other parts inside the body, as prostate, colon, stomach, esophagus, brain, and more, all organs more or less accessible from some existing opening, as the anus, the urethra, the esophagus, the car, respectively, etc. via In particular, this invention relates to images of body parts made with infrared radiation (or infrared “light”), which are valuable as an indicator of cancer, because cancerous masses necessarily develop new blood vessels to increase the blood and nutrients supply to the growing mass, a process known in medicine as angiogenesis. Consequently, to look for excess blood is a way to look for a cancerous mass. In other words, our invention