The current technique of coronary angiography requires the injection of a contrast agent into the coronary artery; this procedure is expensive and potentially hazardous theoretical analysis shows that by taking the difference between X-rays at two different energies, and by using an appropriate contrast agent and signal processing techniques, coronary angiograms can be obtained using intravenous injection. This proposal is to test the feasibility of the approach without the development of an X-ray tube that is able to handle the necessary high electron currents. The proposed approach is to generate images of phantoms using low electrode currents (form the Brookhaven Dynamitron electron accelerator) and using averaging to compensate for the low current. If the preliminary results are promising, and follow-up work is successful, a safer and lower cost angiographic technology will result.
