X-ray diagnostic installation for mammography exposures

• US 5,029,193 A
• Filed: 07/03/1990
• Issued: 07/02/1991
• Est. Priority Date: 07/03/1989
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Siemens AG
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Saffer, Edmund
• Primary Examiner(s): Fields, Carolyn E.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Porta, David P.
• Application Number:
  US07/547,775
• Time in Patent Office: 364 Days
• Field of Search: 378/37, 378/68, 378/208, 378/209, 378/177, 378/188
• US Class Current: 378/37
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 6/502 for diagnosis of breast, i.e. mammography

Abstract

An X-ray diagnostic installation for producing mammography exposures having a compressing means for compressing the breast tissue, may be designed such that the breast tissue is compressed uniformly. A compression plate and a seating plate are arranged in a acute interspacial angle, such that the compression plate tapers toward the examination subject. The compression plate is seated such that the angle of the compression plate relative to the seating plate diminished upon compression of the breast tissue.

Claims

1. An x-ray diagnostic installation for mammography exposures having a seating plate for testing a female breast thereupon which is connected to a holder, and further having a compression plate for compressing a female breast for x-ray imaging which is adjustably connected to said holder by holding means such that a compression surface of said compression plate and a seating plane of said seating plate circumscribe an acute angle whose apex is directed towards a side of said seating plate from which the female breast is restable on said seating plate and such that upon compression of the female breast said acute angle is reduced.

2. An x-ray diagnostic installation as claimed in claim 1,

wherein said seating plane is normally aligned perpendicularly to said holder

and said holding means having a spring element which is allocated to said compression plate such that upon compression of the female breast said angle between said compression surface and said seating plane is reduced against the force of said spring element.

3. An x-ray diagnostic installation as claimed in claim 1,

wherein said seating plane and said compression surface are parallel to one another when compressed together.

4. An x-ray diagnostic installation as claimed in claim 1,

wherein a patient-proximate end face of said compression plate has a reflection element with a pressing surface, said deflection element being seated pivotably around an axis parallel to said end face of said compression plate, and an articulation means for causing said pressing surface to assume an acute angle relative to said compression surface before the compression of the exposure subject, said angle being enlarged by compression of the exposure subject.

5. An x-ray diagnostic installation as claimed in claim 1,

wherein the patient-proximate end face of said compression plate is rounded off, said compression surface and upper side of said compression plate being aligned in a wedge-like manner toward said end face.