Press releases
Please quote Nature Physics as the source of these items.
The March 2006 issue of Nature Physics is available online.
March 2006
X-ray technique improves detail from soft tissues
A technique for improving the detail obtained in X-ray images of soft tissues is described by Franz Pfeiffer and colleagues in the April issue of Nature Physics. It could readily be used to improve the performance of conventional medical X-ray-imaging equipment, making it easier to diagnose disease.
The technique works by extracting more information from the X-rays that pass through the tissue. Conventional X-ray imaging relies on the fact that different tissues of the body absorb radiation to different degrees. This makes it relatively easy to distinguish the structure of bones and other dense bodies (such as tumours) from surrounding tissues. But for soft tissues, which absorb less radiation and therefore produce less contrast in an X-ray image, discerning fine details in their structure is more difficult.
The solution described by Pfeiffer et al. lies in taking advantage not only of how tissues absorb the X-rays but of how much they slow their passage - which changes the phase of the radiation that emerges from the other side. Because of the sensitivity of the phase to even small variations in the composition of the tissue, the use of this information can greatly improve the contrast and clarity of the structures in the X-ray image.
Phase retrieval and differential phase-contrast imaging with low-brilliance X-ray sources pp 258 - 261
Franz Pfeiffer, Timm Weitkamp, Oliver Bunk and Christian David
Published online: 26 March 2006 | doi 10.1038/nphys265
