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. 2015 Jul 14:5:12011.
doi: 10.1038/srep12011.

Realistic wave-optics simulation of X-ray phase-contrast imaging at a human scale

Yongjin Sung  1 , W Paul Segars  2 , Adam Pan  3 , Masami Ando  4 , Colin J R Sheppard  5 , Rajiv Gupta  1
Affiliations

Realistic wave-optics simulation of X-ray phase-contrast imaging at a human scale

Yongjin Sung et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

X-ray phase-contrast imaging (XPCI) can dramatically improve soft tissue contrast in X-ray medical imaging. Despite worldwide efforts to develop novel XPCI systems, a numerical framework to rigorously predict the performance of a clinical XPCI system at a human scale is not yet available. We have developed such a tool by combining a numerical anthropomorphic phantom defined with non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) and a wave optics-based simulator that can accurately capture the phase-contrast signal from a human-scaled numerical phantom. Using a synchrotron-based, high-performance XPCI system, we provide qualitative comparison between simulated and experimental images. Our tool can be used to simulate the performance of XPCI on various disease entities and compare proposed XPCI systems in an unbiased manner.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of image generation in the proposed method.
(a) A coronary artery model; (b) sampling the Fourier transform of (a) at the grid points on the Ewald sphere; (c) 2-D projection of (c). (d) and (e) show simulated intensity images at z = 1 m (d) and 5 m (e) from the model. (f) shows cross-sectional profiles along the dotted lines in (d) and (e).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Discretization artifact in XPCI simulation due to voxelized phantom (Reproduced with permission from
Ref. 33). (a) 3-D Shepp-Logan phantom; (b) zoom-in view of (a); (c) simulated XPCI image using (a); (d) simulated XPCI image using (a) after applying a Gaussian filter (full-width-at-half-maximum, 10 pixels).
Figure 3
Figure 3. Simulated chest image:
(a) attenuation; and (b) phase alteration measured at 1 m from the numerical phantom. Scale bar, 5 cm.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Simulation of an XPCI technique sensitive to the horizontal
(a) and vertical (b) gradients of sample-induced phase alteration.
Figure 5
Figure 5. X-ray dark field imaging of a live frog:
(a) schematic diagram of the set-up used for this study (a) and frog images acquired with the set-up: (b) attenuation; and (c) phase-contrast image (horizontal gradient). Scale bar, 5 mm.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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