Towards virtual histology with X-ray grating interferometry

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer worldwide. Diagnosing breast cancer relies on clinical examination, imaging and biopsy. A core-needle biopsy enables a morphological and biochemical characterization of the cancer and is considered the gold standard for breast cancer diagnosis. A histopathological examination uses high-resolution microscopes with outstanding contrast in the 2D plane, but the spatial resolution in the third, Z-direction, is reduced. In the present paper, we propose two high-resolution table-top systems for phase-contrast X-ray tomography of soft-tissue samples. The first system implements a classical Talbot–Lau interferometer and allows to perform ex-vivo imaging of human breast samples with a voxel size of 5.57 μm. The second system with a comparable voxel size relies on a Sigray MAAST X-ray source with structured anode. For the first time, we demonstrate the applicability of the latter to perform X-ray imaging of human breast specimens with ductal carcinoma in-situ. We assessed image quality of both setups and compared it to histology. We showed that both setups made it possible to target internal features of breast specimens with better resolution and contrast than previously achieved, demonstrating that grating-based phase-contrast X-ray CT could be a complementary tool for clinical histopathology.

X-ray phase-contrast 3D virtual histology characterises complex tissue architecture in colorectal cancer

“…Although SRµCT offers excellent soft-tissue contrast and rapid scanning times, access to the facilities is restricted by beamline schedules and designated research proposals are required for beam use. Continuous efforts to translate phase-contrast advantages into smaller laboratory setups are being made (41)(42)(43). Further advancements in scanning times, usability, and standardisation are needed.…”

Edge-illumination spectral phase-contrast tomography

“…Promising results have been obtained for instance in the field of chest and breast imaging by using Talbot-Lau grating interferometry (GI) (Frank et al 2022 , Rawlik et al 2023 ), in the field of intraoperative tomography by using edge illumination (EI) (Havariyoun et al 2019 ), and in the field of breast CT by using the propagation-based imaging method (Gureyev et al 2019 , Longo et al 2019 ). An even larger number of studies based on XPCI techniques has been published in the context of pre-clinical or non-clinical research, among which it is worth mentioning recent applications in the fields of virtual histology (Massimi et al 2021 , Polikarpov et al 2023 ) and safety inspection (Partridge et al 2022 ). Owing to the 3-order of magnitude difference between the unit decrement of the real part ( δ ) and the imaginary part ( β ) of the complex refractive index ( n ), XPCI delivers higher visibility on low- Z materials, such as soft tissues, with respect to attenuation or spectral imaging.…”