X-ray boosting fabric could make mammograms less painful

Obtaining an x ​​-ray can be uncomfortable – you may need to lie down while you are suffering or you have a part of your compressed body. But a flexible fabric that makes X -rays easier to detect could eliminate this.

“Imagine scanning the injuries of a child without immobilizing him, nor allowing pain examinations without pain,” said Li Xu at Polytechnique University of Hong Kong. She and her colleagues have created a textile called X -Wear that sparkles – which means that he releases light when exposed to X -rays – which could make a reality.

Because X -rays are more difficult to detect than visible X -medical and industrial rays, as well as computed tomography, use sparkling components. These can pick up the X-rays afterwards, for example, go through a member, converting the rays that emerge into visible light which can then be used to create an image of the body part to show internal details such as broken bones. But the most commonly used scintillators are rigid, which makes the devices that they are integrated into large and uncomfortable to interact.

To avoid this, the researchers started again the sparkling materials, for example the oxide of gadolinium dotted with Europium bits, in narrow fibers, which they then woven in fabric.

Xu says that it was a technical challenge to make these flexible fibers while ensuring that they emit enough light to create high resolution images once they are struck by X -rays. His team has shown that the fabric can be useful for taking dental radiographs – in tests, it made X -Wear consistent with the shape of a buccal model in clay and in teeth. He also used it for mammography, where he created an X-Wear bra which eliminated the need to compress a person during imagery, which is the current standard practice.

Imalka Jayawardena at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom says that X-Wear’s ability to comply with the body is a great advantage compared to other flexible scintillator conceptions which are generally similar to a film and folded, but cannot wrap around objects. However, he says that the light detectors with which the X-Wear must be twinned are always flat, which currently limits the possible uses of the fabric.

Researchers can produce X-Wear samples up to approximately a quarter of a square meters, so before they can be widely used, they will have to evolve its production to larger sizes and adapt it to industrial quality equipment, explains XU.

The team also works on industrial applications for X-Wear, such as small flexible devices to inspect electronics or pipelines for defects. XU says that the first stakeholders in a disaster area can also use X-Wear alongside a smartphone and a compact X-ray source to carry out on-site analyzes.