A digital X-ray imager developed by a Waterloo Engineering startup will be tested on patients with lung nodules in a pilot study at Grand River Hospital in Kitchener.
The new technology is faster and cheaper than traditional CT scans, and has the potential to detect lung cancer earlier and with less radiation exposure.
The system was developed by KA Imaging, a Kitchener company founded in 2015 by Waterloo Engineering professor Karim S. Karim and graduates Amol Karnick and Sina Ghanbarzadeh.
Their low-cost, portable, multi-energy X-ray detectors - flat panels that essentially act as the film in the process - produce clearer images by differentiating soft tissue from bone.
The detectors can produce at least three separate images - one showing only bone, one showing only soft tissue and one showing both - instead of just one with existing X-ray machines.