#3,336 – X-Wear
July 9, 2025 by Craig Shames
A new wearable fabric could make taking X-Rays and CT-Scans far more comfortable and convenient for patients. A breakthrough that’s been years in the making.
Medicalxpress explains:
“Since their discovery by Wilhelm Roentgen in 1895, X-rays have become a staple of modern medical care, from imaging teeth and broken bones to screening for the early signs of breast cancer.
The most common type of X-ray detector used in medical imaging today utilizes materials known as scintillators, which are made of inorganic and rigid compounds. This inherent lack of flexibility limits their applications and often requires patients to contort their bodies to accommodate unyielding medical equipment.
This rigidity has created a demand among researchers and the medical community for scintillating materials that are robust, efficient, and flexible. Past attempts to meet this demand, however, have had to sacrifice durability and efficiency for flexibility. An innovative fabric made of flexible inorganic fibers shows remarkable promise and may meet all three requirements.
New results published in the open-access journal Science Advances describe a new, all-inorganic, flexible ‘metafabric’ scintillator that boasts an output 10 times higher than previous flexible polymer-based scintillators.
This fabric, developed by Li Xu and her team at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, could revolutionize how X-ray imaging is performed and could potentially enable wearable health monitoring and X-ray shielding.”
Hopefully, I don’t need to take x-rays anytime soon but it’s encouraging to know that if I do better options are on the way.
Is X-Wear the Greatest Idea Ever?