Diffraction enhanced breast imaging: assessment of realistic system requirements to improve the diagnostic capabilities of mammography

A detectable difference in X-ray diffraction data of healthy and diseased breast tissues has been observed. This information can be used to generate images with a higher contrast than that of conventional transmission mammography. A diffraction enhanced breast imaging (DEBI) system that simultaneously combines transmission and diffraction breast images is currently being developed. This paper presents the imaging system requirements for a clinical DEBI system. The DEBI imaging system employs a phosphor coated L3Vision CCD camera. The DEBI principle has been assessed at the SYRMEP synchrotron beamline (Elettra, Trieste) and with a purpose built mammographic X-ray imaging unit. Diffraction enhanced images have been obtained of realistic breast tissue phantoms, consisting of 4 cm thick slabs of excised breast tissue containing embedded carcinomas. The images were obtained at pre-determined momentum transfer values, allowing some tissue characterization to be achieved during imaging, as well as optimizing image contrast This paper presents the current state of the project. The spatial resolution of the diffraction images have been studied using test phantoms and suggestions are made for the collimation systems necessary for a clinical system. A correction procedure applied to the diffraction images is also presented.