Patent ID: 6950493

Claim:
A method of imaging and determining constituents of a body, the method comprising steps of: (a) projecting X-ray radiation along paths through a body by scanning a beam of X-ray radiation with respect to the body in synchronicity with system configuration for selective emission of the X-ray radiation having M sets of spectral characteristics to provide T sets of measurements in M spectra, the paths extending from an X-ray source to a detector commensurate with an x-ray source excursion in such a manner as to acquire sufficient data for at least one of a tomographic reconstruction and a tomosynthesis reconstruction, the paths extending from an X-ray source to a detector; (b) detecting the X-ray radiation with a plurality of detectors that each define an X-ray path terminus; (c) generating a plurality of signals representative of attenuation of the X-ray radiation on the X-ray paths, the plurality of signals allocated to one of the T sets of measurements; (d) iterating through the above steps (a) through (c) to acquire the T sets of measurements in M sets of spectra in consequence of the projecting step (a) to provide multispectral projection data, the iterations being performed in such a manner that there is spatial commonality between respective ones of the T sets of measurements where each one of the T sets of measurements is substantially spatially aligned with at least a subset of another of the T sets of measurements; and (e) processing the multispectral projection data to provide first information for a at least one of a multispectral tomographic and a multispectral tomosynthesis reconstruction, to obtain image data decomposed onto basis functions representative of body constituents, and to obtain analytical results indicative of a diagnostic condition.