Review of CdTe medical applications

CdTe sensors are now being used in several areas of nuclear medicine. CdTe probe technics, originally developed to study dental pathology in dog models, are being used clinically to diagnose venous thrombosis of the legs and to detect occult dental infections in patients scheduled for prosthetic cardiovascular and orthopedic surgery. Similar instrumentation is in use in animal research of myocardial infarction and synthetic tooth substitutes. Transmission technics have also been developed to diagnose pulmonary edema and to measure bone mineral changes in space flight. Investigations are also underway in the use of linear or two-dimensional arrays of CdTe gamma sensors for medical imaging. Economic considerations have slowed this work, but the technology appears to be available. Development of photoconductive CdTe X-ray detectors for scintigraphic scanners has also begun. Rapid detector improvement will be needed for success in this field, but the potential usefulness is very great. Together, the present application results are encouraging and wide use of CdTe detectors should occur within only a few years