ABSTRACT

Clinical requirements remain dynamic. Upcoming novel detection systems and improved image reconstruction and denoising algorithms alter the priorities for the characteristics of medical X-ray sources. Pressure regarding the costs of healthcare brings the need for new trade-offs between performance and life cycle costs. The quest for reduction of ionizing radiation, reduction of system downtime, improved automation of handling and image analysis, better visibility of small lesions, reduction of costs, and further improvement of routine image quality is the major driving force for the development of medical X-ray sources. Interventional X-ray has been experiencing great progress of computational noise reduction as well that translates to reduction of staff and patient dose and further improved image quality. However, requirements for tube power are not expected to become more relaxed. Instead, the improved photon economics is invested in sharpening the spectrum by additional filtration.