title: Realistic wave-optics simulation of X-ray phase-contrast imaging at a human scale.
abstract: X-ray phase-contrast imaging (XPCI) can dramatically improve soft tissue contrast in X-ray medical imaging. Despite worldwide efforts to develop novel XPCI systems, a numerical framework to rigorously predict the performance of a clinical XPCI system at a human scale is not yet available. We have developed such a tool by combining a numerical anthropomorphic phantom defined with non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) and a wave optics-based simulator that can accurately capture the phase-contrast signal from a human-scaled numerical phantom. Using a synchrotron-based, high-performance XPCI system, we provide qualitative comparison between simulated and experimental images. Our tool can be used to simulate the performance of XPCI on various disease entities and compare proposed XPCI systems in an unbiased manner.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.
authors.forename: Yongjin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sung
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27705, USA.
authors.forename: W Paul
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Segars
authors.affiliation: Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: The Research Institute for Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, Noda, Chiba 278-8510, Japan.
authors.forename: Masami
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ando
authors.affiliation: Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Morego 30, Genova 16163, Italy.
authors.forename: Colin J R
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Sheppard
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA.
authors.forename: Rajiv
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gupta
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001001:Anura; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D014965:X-Rays