Preclinical phase-contrast imaging of small-animal tumor models

We develop novel contrast modalities for biomedical x-ray imaging, which explicitly make use of the wave-optical properties of x-ray beams. Just like phase-contrast microscopy with visible light displays cells with much higher contrast than conventional brightfield microscopy, phase-contrast x-ray imaging offers significantly higher contrast in soft tissue than conventional x-ray radiography. This project is specifically focused on developing a first phase-contrast microCT small-animal scanner to evaluate the potential of phase-contrast x-ray CT for the early detection of cancer.

Key publications:

1.) Bech, M., Jensen, T.H., Bunk, O., Donath, T., David, C., Weitkamp, T., Le Duc, G., Bravin, A., Cloetens, P. & Pfeiffer, F. (2010), "Advanced contrast modalities for X-ray radiology: Phase-contrast and dark-field imaging using a grating interferometer", Zeitschrift für Medizinische Physik. Vol. 20(1), pp. 7-16.

2.) Donath, T., Pfeiffer, F., Bunk, O., Gruenzweig, C., Hempel, E., Popescu, S., Vock, P. & David, C. (2010), "Toward Clinical X-ray Phase-Contrast CT Demonstration of Enhanced Soft-Tissue Contrast in Human Specimen", Investigative Radiology. Vol. 45(7), pp. 445-452.

3.) Jensen, T.H., Bech, M., Bunk, O., Donath, T., David, C., Feidenhans'i, R. & Pfeiffer, F. (2010), "Directional x-ray dark-field imaging", Physics in Medicine and Biology. Vol. 55(12), pp. 3317-3323.

4.) Bunk, O., Bech, M., Jensen, T.H., Feidenhans'l, R., Binderup, T., Menzel, A. & Pfeiffer, F. (2009), "Multimodal x-ray scatter imaging", New Journal of Physics. Vol. 11, pp. 123016.

5.) Donath, T., Chabior, M., Pfeiffer, F., Bunk, O., Reznikova, E., Mohr, J., Hempel, E., Popescu, S., Hoheisel, M., Schuster, M., Baumann, J. & David, C. (2009), "Inverse geometry for grating-based x-ray phase-contrast imaging", Journal of Applied Physics. Vol. 106(5)

6.) Pfeiffer, F., Bech, M., Bunk, O., Donath, T., Henrich, B., Kraft, P. & David, C. (2009), "X-ray dark-field and phase-contrast imaging using a grating interferometer", Journal of Applied Physics. Vol. 105(10), pp. 102006.