Microbubbles as a scattering contrast agent for grating-based x-ray dark-field imaging

Phys Med Biol. 2013 Feb 21;58(4):N37-46. doi: 10.1088/0031-9155/58/4/N37. Epub 2013 Feb 1.

Abstract

In clinically established-absorption-based-biomedical x-ray imaging, contrast agents with high atomic numbers (e.g. iodine) are commonly used for contrast enhancement. The development of novel x-ray contrast modalities such as phase contrast and dark-field contrast opens up the possible use of alternative contrast media in x-ray imaging. We investigate using ultrasound contrast agents, which unlike iodine-based contrast agents can also be administered to patients with renal impairment and thyroid dysfunction, for application with a recently developed novel x-ray dark-field imaging modality. To produce contrast from these microbubble-based contrast agents, our method exploits ultra-small-angle coherent x-ray scattering. Such scattering dark-field x-ray images can be obtained with a grating-based x-ray imaging setup, together with refraction-based differential phase-contrast and the conventional attenuation contrast images. In this work we specifically show that ultrasound contrast agents based on microbubbles can be used to produce strongly enhanced dark-field contrast, with superior contrast-to-noise ratio compared to the attenuation signal. We also demonstrate that this method works well with an x-ray tube-based setup and that the relative contrast gain even increases when the pixel size is increased from tenths of microns to clinically compatible detector resolutions about up to a millimetre.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Absorption
  • Computer Simulation
  • Contrast Media / pharmacology*
  • Diagnostic Imaging / methods*
  • Equipment Design
  • Humans
  • Interferometry / methods
  • Kidney Diseases / pathology
  • Microbubbles*
  • Scattering, Radiation
  • Ultrasonography / methods
  • X-Rays

Substances

  • Contrast Media