CT scan of implants

I work in medical imaging and attempted to hold a patient still during a CT head, completely forgetting I have metal artifacts in my hands. Luckily they didn’t make huge streaks through the images the way metal sometimes does. I made some 3D reconstructions of the images:

It’s an NExT between my first and second metacarpal, and an Apex between my second and third.

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The Apex looks like Jesus wearing a chicken suit :grin:. Or a dinosaur suit (well chickens are dinosaurs anyway).

Great pics! At some point in my life I wanted to be a medical imaging technician but switched to IT.

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At some point in my life I wanted to be an astronaut but switched to … oh well…(shrug)…

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At some point in my life I wanted to be a race car driver but switched to truck driver, then switched to motorcycle sales, then switched to tower climbing, and welding, and now EMT :classic_grin:

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That is awesome! Thanks for the images!

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or a giant sloth skeleton wearing a wetsuit

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That Apex looks weird, what could’ve caused the artifacts around it? Reflections off the silicon perhaps?

What do your coworkers think about your implants? I suspect that they must have seen them in an x-ray or two.

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More likely the copper traces in the antenna.

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People are definitely blown away by them.

As for why it looks so weird, take a look at this image.

images

The true output of CT scans are a stack of horizontal slices. This is a slice through the skull of someone who likely has a metal clip around an aneurysm to prevent it from getting worse. The streaks surrounding it are because metals absorb so much of the radiation, the machine can’t correctly calculate the attenuation of the tissue surrounding it.

Like Amal said, the copper traces and solder pads are causing this effect on a smaller scale. This is why the center of it looks “smeared”.

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It’s definitely the steel of the MOB packaged chip, not the copper. You can see the end loops of the antenna with no distortion and there’s copper there. There’s not much copper in the whole thing. There’s a big steel plate under the chip though

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Ah didn’t realize that was steel. That’s definitely where it’s coming from.