Phase-Contrast Hounsfield Units of Fixated and Non-Fixated Soft-Tissue Samples

PLoS One. 2015 Aug 31;10(8):e0137016. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0137016. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

X-ray phase-contrast imaging is a novel technology that achieves high soft-tissue contrast. Although its clinical impact is still under investigation, the technique may potentially improve clinical diagnostics. In conventional attenuation-based X-ray computed tomography, radiological diagnostics are quantified by Hounsfield units. Corresponding Hounsfield units for phase-contrast imaging have been recently introduced, enabling a setup-independent comparison and standardized interpretation of imaging results. Thus far, the experimental values of few tissue types have been reported; these values have been determined from fixated tissue samples. This study presents phase-contrast Hounsfield units for various types of non-fixated human soft tissues. A large variety of tissue specimens ranging from adipose, muscle and connective tissues to liver, kidney and pancreas tissues were imaged by a grating interferometer with a rotating-anode X-ray tube and a photon-counting detector. Furthermore, we investigated the effects of formalin fixation on the quantitative phase-contrast imaging results.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Connective Tissue / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Kidney / physiology
  • Liver / physiology
  • Microscopy, Phase-Contrast / methods
  • Muscles / physiology
  • Pancreas / physiology
  • Photons
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed / methods
  • X-Ray Diffraction / methods

Grants and funding

The authors acknowledge financial support through the DFG Cluster of Excellence Munich-Centre for Advanced Photonics (MAP), the DFG Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz program and the European Research Council (ERC, FP7, StG 240142). M.W. further acknowledges the Graduate School of Information Science in Health (GSISH). This work was carried out with the support of the Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility (KNMF, www.kit.edu/knmf), a Helmholtz Research Infrastructure at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).