Program Information
First Experimental Demonstration of the Anisotropic Detection Principle in X-Ray Fluorescence Computed Tomography
M Ahmad*, M Bazalova , R Fahrig , L Xing , Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Presentations
TU-A-9A-5 Tuesday 7:30AM - 9:30AM Room: 9APurpose: To improve the sensitivity of X-ray fluorescence computed tomography (XFCT) for in vivo molecular imaging. Is the maximum sensitivity achieved with an isotropic (4Ï€) detector configuration? We prove that this is not necessarily true, and that a greater sensitivity is possible with anisotropic detector configuration.
Methods: An XFCT imaging system was constructed consisting of 1) a collimated pencil beam x-ray source using a fluoroscopy grade x-ray tube; 2) a CdTe x-ray photon counting detector to detect fluorescent x-rays; and 3) a rotation/translation stage for tomographic imaging. We created a 6.5-cm diameter water phantom with 2-cm inserts of low gold concentration (0.25%–1%) to simulate tumors targeted by gold nano-particles. The placement of x-ray fluorescence detector were chosen to minimize scatter x-rays. XFCT imaging was performed at three different detector positions (60°, 90°, 145°) to determine the impact of forward-scatter, side-scatter, and back-scatter on imaging performance. The three data sets were also combined to estimate the imaging performance with an isotropic detector.
Results: The highest imaging performance was achieved when the XF detector was in the back-scatter 145° configuration. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was 5.5 for the 0.25% gold concentration compared to SNRs of 1.4, 0, and 2.4 for 60°, 90°, and combined (60°+90°+145°) datasets. Only the 145° detector arrangement alone could detect the 0.25% concentration. The imaging dose was 14 mGy for each detector arrangement experiment.
Conclusion: This study experimentally proves, for the fist time, the Anisotropic Detection Principle in XF imaging, which holds that optimized anisotropic x-ray fluorescence detection provides greater sensitivity than isotropic detection. The optimized detection arrangement was used to improve the sensitivity of the XFCT experiment. The achieved XFCT sensitivity is the highest ever for a phantom at least this large using a benchtop x-ray source, which is an important step toward clinical XFCT molecular imaging.
Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: This work was supported by the NCI fellowship grant R25T-CA118681 and by the NIH (1R01-EB016777) and NIBIB (1K99-EB016059).
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