Patent ID: 8265224

Claim:
An Angiographic X-ray imaging system, comprising: a detector for, automatically detecting a peak in contrast agent enhanced blood flow and a transition between different phases of contrast agent enhanced blood flow in vessels of a portion of patient anatomy, in response to pixel luminance content of at least one image of a sequence of acquired images of the portion of patient anatomy; automatically detecting a transition between different states of operation of an invasive instrument in a portion of patient anatomy, in response to a transition in pixel luminance content of at least one image of said sequence of acquired images of the portion of patient anatomy; a repository of information associating a plurality of different sets of X-ray imaging device settings with a corresponding plurality of different phases of contrast agent enhanced blood flow in vessels including a first set of settings associated with a first phase and a different second set of settings associated with a different second phase, an individual set of X-ray imaging device settings including an X-ray radiation exposure pulse width and at least one of, (a) a radiation dose setting and (b) an image acquisition frame rate; and an X-ray imaging device for using said detector and said information for automatically adaptively acquiring a sequence of images of said portion of patient anatomy including said invasive instrument in a particular state by sequentially acquiring at least one image in said first phase using said first set of settings and at least one image in said second phase using said second set of settings, in response to detection of a transition between the first and second phases.