The neighborhood physician is where people go first when they are concerned about their health.
If the sort of precision examination equipment found at major hospitals were also available at neighborhood clinics, it would enable the detection of cancer, lifestyle diseases, and other disorders in their earliest stages. This is one of the goals of "medical imaging," a field Canon has targeted as a next-generation business domain.

Consider this: the development of sensors with unprecedented levels of precision would not only make it possible to diagnose conditions whose very detection still proves difficult, but would also give way to compact diagnostic imaging equipment that doesn't require large examination spaces. Giving patients easy access to detailed examinations at neighborhood clinics would lead to extremely early detection of illnesses, thereby greatly improving chances for a complete recovery.

Canon medical imaging challenges conventional thinking about medical diagnostics. The heart of the enterprise is the Canon-Kyoto University Joint Research Project, a venture between Canon and Kyoto University, a learning institution that is home to many world-renowned scholars. In the initiative, nicknamed the CK Project, several dozen researchers in the fields of medicine, engineering, and information studies from Kyoto University and Canon collaborate on research and development across a wide range of themes in the field of cutting-edge medical imaging diagnostics, including optical imaging, ultrasound, magnetic measurement, and molecular probes.
These researchers continue to make progress one step at a time, envisioning the day when advanced precision diagnostic systems are available to neighborhood clinics.