Patent ID: 8588364

Claim:
A medical X-ray apparatus comprising a supporting part for supporting an X-ray generator and a two-dimensional X-ray detector while interposing a dental arch to be examined therebetween, a radiation area restricting part for restricting a radiation area of X-ray generated from said X-ray generator by restricting the X-ray to form a slit X-ray beam, a scan driving part for scanning said dental arch with the slit X-ray beam restricted by said radiation area restricting part in panoramic radiography, wherein a direction intersecting with an X-ray scan direction is defined as a height direction; said radiation area restricting part forms said slit X-ray beam extending in said height direction, and said radiation area restricting part comprises a slit with a top end and a bottom end, at least one of which is moveable in said height direction, a radiation area setting part for setting the radiation area, a mode switching part for switching between a partial panoramic radiography mode for executing a partial panoramic radiography wherein only a part of radiography objective area of panoramic radiography as a local area is set as the radiation area, and an entire panoramic radiography mode for executing an entire panoramic radiography wherein an entire radiography objective area of panoramic radiography is set as the radiation area, wherein said radiation area setting part sets the local area in said partial panoramic radiography mode, the local area is set so that the radiation area in the height direction and in said X-ray scan direction is more restricted than the radiation area in the entire panoramic radiography mode, an X-ray radiation range of the local area in the height direction is set by moving at least one of said top and bottom ends of said slit in said height direction by said radiation area restricting part at a desired position in accordance with a position of the local area, the X-ray radiation range of the local area in the scan direction is set so that said slit X-ray beam is permitted to let only the local area be radiated, a displaying part displays an image of the dental arch for specifying the local area, and an operating part receives an operation to the image of the dental arch to change the range of the radiation area in the height direction and in the scan direction in the partial panoramic radiography mode.