title: Development of a prototype gantry system for preclinical x-ray phase-contrast computed tomography.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore the potential of grating-based x-ray phase-contrast imaging for clinical applications, a first compact gantry system was developed. It is designed such that it can be implemented into an in-vivo small-animal phase-contrast computed tomography (PC-CT) scanner. The purpose of the present study is to assess the accuracy and quantitativeness of the described gantry in both absorption and phase-contrast.
  
  
  METHODS
  A phantom, containing six chemically well-defined liquids, was constructed. A tomography scan with cone-beam reconstruction of this phantom was performed yielding the spatial distribution of the linear attenuation coefficient μ and decrement δ of the complex refractive index. Theoretical values of μ and δ were calculated for each liquid from tabulated data and compared with the experimentally measured values. Additionally, a color-fused image representation is proposed to display the complementary absorption and phase-contrast information in a single image.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Experimental and calculated data of the phantom agree well confirming the quantitativeness and accuracy of the reconstructed spatial distributions of μ and δ. The proposed color-fused image representation, which combines the complementary absorption and phase information, considerably helps in distinguishing the individual substances.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The concept of grating-based phase-contrast computed tomography (CT) can be implemented into a compact, cone-beam geometry gantry setup. The authors believe that this work represents an important milestone in translating phase-contrast x-ray imaging from previous proof-of-principle experiments to first preclinical biomedical imaging applications on small-animal models.
authors: Department of Physics, Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany.
authors: Arne
authors: A
authors: Tapfer
authors: Martin
authors: M
authors: Bech
authors: Bart
authors: B
authors: Pauwels
authors: Xuan
authors: X
authors: Liu
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Bruyndonckx
authors: Alexander
authors: A
authors: Sasov
authors: Johannes
authors: J
authors: Kenntner
authors: Jurgen
authors: J
authors: Mohr
authors: Marco
authors: M
authors: Walter
authors: Joachim
authors: J
authors: Schulz
authors: Franz
authors: F
authors: Pfeiffer
mesh_terms: D000042:Absorption; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000295:instrumentation*