Microbubbles as a scattering contrast agent for grating-based x-ray dark-field imaging
Velroyen A, Bech M, Malecki A, Tapfer A, Yaroshenko A, Ingrisch M, Cyran CC, Auweter SD, Nikolaou K, Reiser M, Pfeiffer F (2013)
Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2013
Journal
Book Volume: 58
Pages Range: N37-N46
Journal Issue: 4
DOI: 10.1088/0031-9155/58/4/N37
Abstract
In clinically established - absorption-based - biomedical x-ray imaging, contrast agents with high atomic numbers (e.g. iodine) are commonly used for contrast enhancement. The development of novel x-ray contrast modalities such as phase contrast and dark-field contrast opens up the possible use of alternative contrast media in x-ray imaging. We investigate using ultrasound contrast agents, which unlike iodine-based contrast agents can also be administered to patients with renal impairment and thyroid dysfunction, for application with a recently developed novel x-ray dark-field imaging modality. To produce contrast from these microbubble-based contrast agents, our method exploits ultra-small-angle coherent x-ray scattering. Such scattering dark-field x-ray images can be obtained with a grating-based x-ray imaging setup, together with refraction-based differential phase-contrast and the conventional attenuation contrast images. In this work we specifically show that ultrasound contrast agents based on microbubbles can be used to produce strongly enhanced dark-field contrast, with superior contrast-to-noise ratio compared to the attenuation signal. We also demonstrate that this method works well with an x-ray tube-based setup and that the relative contrast gain even increases when the pixel size is increased from tenths of microns to clinically compatible detector resolutions about up to a millimetre. © 2013 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.
Involved external institutions
Technische Universität München (TUM)
Germany (DE)
Klinikum der Universität München (Großhadern und Innenstadt)
Germany (DE)
Germany (DE)
Klinikum der Universität München (Großhadern und Innenstadt)
Germany (DE)
How to cite
APA:
Velroyen, A., Bech, M., Malecki, A., Tapfer, A., Yaroshenko, A., Ingrisch, M.,... Pfeiffer, F. (2013). Microbubbles as a scattering contrast agent for grating-based x-ray dark-field imaging. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 58(4), N37-N46. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/58/4/N37
MLA:
Velroyen, A., et al. "Microbubbles as a scattering contrast agent for grating-based x-ray dark-field imaging." Physics in Medicine and Biology 58.4 (2013): N37-N46.
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