Refraction-contrast X-ray CT for Analyzing Three-dimensional Structures of Pathological Samples

Abstract

Refraction-based computed tomography using x-ray dark-field imaging(XDFI-CT), proposed by M. Ando in 2002, can obtain high-definition three-dimensional structures of biomedical samples. Since the advent of XDFI-CT, many methods including hardware and software techniques have been developed to improve the image quality and the imaging efficiency. In the paper, we first introduce the imaging principle of XDFI-CT, and then outline the reconstruction techniques to suppress artifacts and to reduce the views, which have been recently developed for XDFI-CT. Finally, we demonstrate the XDFI-CT images acquired from several pathological samples, such as human iliac artery, human liver, and human breast nipple, to show the effectiveness.