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OAK BROOK, Ill. – A team of crew members aboard a commercial spaceflight acquired the first diagnostic X-rays during an orbital flight. Results of the mission were published today in Radiology, a journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
“It’s been a dream for aerospace medicine to have more than one imaging modality for diagnosing illnesses and injuries in space,” said Sheyna Gifford, M.D., lead researcher and an assistant professor of aerospace medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “X-rays are fast, easy and diagnostically valuable.”
For more than four decades, ultrasound has been the only reliable medical imaging modality used in spaceflight. As spaceflight missions increase in duration and distance, increasing the risk of adverse medical events, the limitations of ultrasound have become less acceptable. Ultrasound imaging requires substantial operator training and relies on a sound wave transmitting medium.
“Traditional X-ray machines are very large, produce a lot of radiation, and have a tendency to produce a blurred image if there’s movement,” Dr. Gifford said. “Because everything in space is constantly moving, the conceit has been that obtaining a diagnostic image in orbit was too technically challenging.”
