ABSTRACT

Some lethal diseases, such as breast cancer, can be effectively treated if diagnosed early in their development. Thus periodic wide spread screening of women above a certain age is desirable. Such practices can greatly benefit from a reduction of the radiation doses delivered by conventional machines now in use, and from an improvement on the detection of low contrast objects, now limited by intrinsic noise. We propose to develop an X-ray imaging device, based on CdZnTe detectors coupled to photon-counting front-end electronics, able to deliver better quality radiography than conventional film, with a very substantial reduction of the dose. The main application of the system would be screening for the very early markers of breast cancer, but it could also be used for other diseases, such as osteoporosis or radiology in general.

OBJECTIVES

Dear-Mama is a research and technology development project which aims to develop and build a full field mammography system with CdZnTe detectors bump-bonded to photons counting front-end electronics. The result of this research and development will be a low dose in vivo imaging system for radiology in general and for mammography in particular. The system will operate with lower doses of radiation than those available today while maintaining the image quality, especially when it comes to imaging low contrast objects, which is a very valuable parameter for mammography. Three radiology teams specialised in mammography, general radiology, and osteoporosis and joint disease, will test the performance of the X-ray system in their respective fields. Thus we are aiming at providing the European Community with a better quality health care.

DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK

The workplan of Dear-Mama combines state of the art technology in deep-submicron electronics, room temperature semiconductors. The project consists of 12 workpackages to be executed during a period of 48 months.

These workpackages are divided into three categories:

• Development and construction of the X-ray machine. This part comprises seven workpackages and it will be excuted in the first 32 months of the project. At the end of this phase a fully commissioned digital X-ray machine will be ready for evaluation by Expert Radiologists.
• Clinical trails and evaluation of the system performance by three teams of radiologists. This part consists of three workpackages and will be executed in the last 16 months of the project. In this part the radiologists will assess the system performance and submit their findings in detailed reports.
• Management and Exploitation of the project. This part consists of two workpackages. The exploitation plans will be a major task because of the potential industrial applications of the results that will be achieved by Dear-Mama throughout the 48 months. The management aspect entails supervising the project's progress and maintaining continuous contact with the Consortium and the EU Commission. Ethical issues and safety measures are a top priority of this latter workpackage.

The Consortium, which will carry out the work, consists of seven contractor partners, three from Spain, one from Italy, two from France, one from Austria, and six subcontractor institutes. The profile of the these partners is: three experts in radiology, one expert in physics and detector instrumentation, one expert in biophysics, one expert in microelectronics, and one company which produces and sells medical X-ray imaging systems.

DELIVERABLES

In month 32 a complete and fully-functioning digital X-ray system with an image size of 24 cm x 20 cm based on CdZnTe Detectors, ready to be evaluated for Mammography use in particular, and for radiology in general. In addition to the follow-up reports which will be delivered after six months, a final report will be delivered in month 48, summarizing the research and technical development related to the construction of the X-ray system, its performance based on the clinical trails done by the three radiology teams, and the exploitation plans in connection with the marketing strategies for world wide distribution.

CONSORTIUM