Abstract: An analog x-ray photon counting detector is provided. The detector may include a direct conversion medium such as CZT, a charge sensitive preamplifier receiving an electronic pulse form the direct conversion medium, pulse-shaping electronics for conditioning the amplified signal, and one or more time-over-threshold triggers set to differing trigger levels. The time-over-threshold data is the related back to photon energy through a calibration curve, where each trigger level is associated with one calibration curve. The calibration data may be contained in a nonlinear lookup table. Each photocurrent pulse may be analyzed according to one or more time-over-threshold measurements. Thus, the energy values computed from each-time-over threshold measurement may be averaged.

Abstract: A multi-modality detection system and method for detecting medically-related conditions is disclosed. In some respects, the system and methods rely on at least two different modalities for imaging a region of interest including a patient organ such as the breast, brain, or other object within the region of interest. The two or more modalities are enabled with respective detectors as described herein and a respective output of each is collected and formed into a combined (fused) output representative of the plurality of different imaging modalities to enable imagine, diagnosis, study, or treatment of the medical condition.

Abstract: A new method of breast imaging to improve the detection of cancer during early stages of development is disclosed. The system combines molecular images of radioisotope uptake in cancerous cells with three dimensional high resolution single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET), x-ray computed tomography (CT) and optical reflectance and emission (ORE) images of the breast. The system acquires data from nuclear isotopes within the breast and processes the data into three dimensional molecular tomographic images of cancerous cellular activity, morphological three dimensional x-ray density tomographic images and three dimensional optical surface images.