IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2018 Dec;37(12):2642-2650. doi: 10.1109/TMI.2018.2845905. Epub 2018 Jun 11.
Histopathological analysis is the current gold standard in breast cancer diagnosis and management, however, as imaging technology improves, the amount of potential diagnostic information that may be demonstrable radiologically should also increase. We aimed to evaluate the potential clinical usefulness of 3-D phase-contrast micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) imaging at high spatial resolutions as an adjunct to conventional histological microscopy. Ten breast tissue specimens, 2 mm in diameter, were scanned at the SYRMEP beamline of the Elettra Synchrotron using the propagation-based phase-contrast micro-tomography method. We obtained pixel size images, which were analyzed and compared with corresponding histological sections examined under light microscopy. To evaluate the effect of spatial resolution on breast cancer diagnosis, scans with four different pixel sizes were also performed. Our comparative analysis revealed that high-resolution images can enable, at a near-histological level, detailed architectural assessment of tissue that may permit increased breast cancer diagnostic sensitivity and specificity when compared with current imaging practices. The potential clinical applications of this method are also discussed.
组织病理学分析是目前乳腺癌诊断和管理的金标准，但随着成像技术的提高，放射学上可能显示的潜在诊断信息量也应该增加。我们旨在评估高空间分辨率的三维相衬微计算机断层扫描（micro-CT）成像作为常规组织学显微镜的辅助手段的潜在临床应用价值。使用基于传播的相衬微断层扫描方法，我们在 Elettra 同步加速器的 SYRMEP 光束线上对 10 个直径 2 毫米的乳腺组织标本进行了扫描。我们获得了像素大小图像，并对其进行了分析，然后与在光学显微镜下检查的相应组织学切片进行了比较。为了评估空间分辨率对乳腺癌诊断的影响，我们还进行了四次不同像素大小的扫描。我们的对比分析表明，高分辨率图像可以在接近组织学的水平上，对组织的详细结构进行评估，与当前的成像方法相比，这可能提高乳腺癌诊断的敏感性和特异性。还讨论了该方法的潜在临床应用。
