Page 10 University Daily Kansan, January 23, 1981
3-D reconstruction pinpoints brain tumors
By BRIAN LEVINSON Staff Reporter
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The image on the screen screens like a pile of building blocks. Suddenly, the triangles and lines start to come together. Color and depth are added. There on the screen is an 8-dimensional reconstruction of a brain.
X-rays and the latest in computer technology have merged to give doctors at the University of Kansas Medical Center the capability to create three 18-inch models in the treatment of brain tumors and lesions in other parts of the body.
A Computerized-Axial Tomography scan is taken of a patient with a special x-ray machine that rotates 360 degrees around the patient. In less than a minute the machine takes four to eight minutes to show each x-ray showing a slice of the brain.
The 3-D image can show radiologists exactly where a tumor is in the brain and determine its size to within five millimeters.
"Conventional radiology is not sensitive enough to allow us to see the different structures in a tumor," Solomon Battyk, a neuro-radiology specialist at Emory's medical radiology, said Wednesday. "With this machine we can detect differences as
little as 1 percent in the density of a tumor."
THE 3-D RECONSTRUCTION is done in three steps. Use a pen that is connected directly to the computer, a mouse, or an infrared sensor on the X-ray by touching them with the pen, called a coordinated digitzer. Then, the selected contours are scanned as they pass across perspective drawing, which offers the appearance of depth on a flat surface.
"The same idea is used for weather maps or geographical elevation contour maps," Batnitzky said.
To complete the 3-D image, triangular tiles are placed by the computer between each of the contours approximate the surface of the contour.
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The information from the CAT scan is then fed into a computer and analyzed by a complex mathematical formula that mimics himself said he didn't understand.
Within a minute, the first slice of the brain scan appears on the computer screen. More slices are added one by one. After five minutes a 3-D image of an entire brain appears on the screen in great clarity and detail.
Conventional x-rays are beamed through the body and form images based on the amount of radiation picked by detectors on the other side of the body.
They are not always accurate because bones and tissue in the brain absorb some of the x-rays and affect the results.
CAT scans use xenon gas or iodine crystals to absorb the radiation, neither of which has a harmful effect.
THERE IS ONE problem for the patient being scanned.
"No movement is tolerated while the x-rays are being taken, Bantinitzk said. "The patient has to be absolutely dead still."
The 3-D reconstruction makes the outside of the skull transparent so the neuro-radiologist can see inside and look at the tumor.
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The reconstruction also allows doctors to determine the response of a tumor to different kinds of treatment, Batitzky said.
Batkinyi is excited about the future for 3-D reconstructions because work is now being done on a stereo tacix system and the neurosurgery to pinpoint a tumor.
"Since we can measure a tumor to precisely a doctor can determine exactly how much smaller a tumor is as a result of treatment," he said. "This allows him to decide which treatment would be best for a patient."
"The smallest lesions are normally inoperable but with the stereo taxic system a case could probe the area of injury. It is possible to remove it entirely." Batiksay said.
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The Med Center has two CAT scan machines, which cost between $750,000 and $1 million each. One machine is used just for brain scans, which the other uses for spinal surgery. The other machine, obtained in 1980, is used for scans of other body parts.
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Nong Cook, a research associate at the KU Med Center, outlines an X-ray on a computer terminal. The computer reads the points on the drawing and assembles them into a three dimensional picture on a television screen. The pictures, similar to the one at the left, help doctors plan delicate operations.
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