Pang Shuo, Zhu Zheyuan, Wang Ge, Cong Wenxiang
The College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA.
Phys Med Biol. 2016 May 21;61(10):3734-48. doi: 10.1088/0031-9155/61/10/3734. Epub 2016 Apr 15.
Small-angle x-ray scatter imaging has a high intrinsic contrast in cancer research and other applications, and provides information on molecular composition and micro-structure of the tissue. In general, the implementations of small-angle coherent scatter imaging can be divided into two main categories: direct tomography and angular dispersive computerized tomography. Based on the recent development of energy-discriminative photon-counting detector array, here we propose a computerized tomography setup based on energy-dispersive measurement with a photon-counting detector array. To show merits of the energy-dispersive approach, we have performed numerical tests with a phantom containing various tissue types, in comparison with the existing imaging approaches. The results show that with an energy resolution of ~6 keV, the energy dispersive tomography system with a broadband tabletop x-ray would outperform the angular dispersive system, which makes the x-ray small-angle scatter tomography promising for high-specificity tissue imaging.
小角X射线散射成像在癌症研究和其他应用中具有很高的固有对比度，并能提供有关组织分子组成和微观结构的信息。一般来说，小角相干散射成像的实现主要可分为两类：直接断层扫描和角色散计算机断层扫描。基于能量分辨光子计数探测器阵列的最新发展，我们在此提出一种基于光子计数探测器阵列能量色散测量的计算机断层扫描装置。为了展示能量色散方法的优点，我们与现有的成像方法进行了比较，对包含各种组织类型的模型进行了数值测试。结果表明，在能量分辨率约为6 keV的情况下，采用宽带桌面X射线的能量色散断层扫描系统将优于角色散系统，这使得X射线小角散射断层扫描在高特异性组织成像方面具有广阔前景。
