Toward clinical differential phase contrast mammography: preliminary evaluations and image processing schemes

Abstract

Phase contrast and scattering-based X-ray imaging are very promising tools for medical diagnostics because they are able to provide additional and complementary information to traditional absorption-based methods. In this work, we discuss the investigation of three native breast samples with a grating interferometer equipped with a conventional X-ray tube, the full study being published in ref. [1]. We briefly introduce a method to fuse absorption, differential phase and scattering signals into a unique image with improved diagnostic contents. Our approach yields complementary and inaccessible information on the electron density distribution and the small-angle scattering power of the sample which could potentially answer clinically relevant, yet unresolved questions such as the capability to unequivocally discern between (pre-) malignant changes and post-operative scars or to distinguish cancer-invaded regions within healthy tissue.