Department of Applied Physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology/Albanova, Stockholm, Sweden.
Karolinska Institutet, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Clinical Sciences, Danderyd University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jul 20;8(1):11014. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-29344-3.
High-spatial-resolution histology of coronary artery autopsy samples play an important role for understanding heart disease such as myocardial infarction. Unfortunately, classical histology is often destructive, has thick slicing, requires extensive sample preparation, and is time-consuming. X-ray micro-CT provides fast nondestructive 3D imaging but absorption contrast is often insufficient, especially for observing soft-tissue features with high resolution. Here we show that propagation-based x-ray phase-contrast tomography has the resolution and contrast to image clinically relevant soft-tissue features in intact coronary artery autopsy samples with cellular resolution. We observe microscopic lipid-rich plaques, individual adipose cells, ensembles of few foam cells, and the thin fibrous cap. The method relies on a small-spot laboratory x-ray microfocus source, and provides high-spatial resolution in all three dimensions, fast data acquisition, minimum sample distortion and requires no sample preparation.
冠状动脉解剖样本的高空间分辨率组织学对于理解心肌梗死等心脏病具有重要作用。不幸的是，经典的组织学通常具有破坏性，切片较厚，需要广泛的样本制备，并且耗时。X 射线微计算机断层扫描（micro-CT）提供快速无损的 3D 成像，但吸收对比度通常不足，尤其是对于以高分辨率观察软组织特征。在这里，我们表明基于传播的 X 射线相衬层析成像具有分辨率和对比度，可以以细胞分辨率对完整冠状动脉解剖样本中的临床相关软组织特征进行成像。我们观察到微观富含脂质的斑块、单个脂肪细胞、少量泡沫细胞的集合体以及薄的纤维帽。该方法依赖于小光斑实验室 X 射线微焦点源，并在所有三个维度上提供高空间分辨率、快速数据采集、最小的样本变形，并且不需要样本制备。
