Scherer, K. et al. Improved Diagnostics by Assessing the Micromorphology of Breast Calcifications via X-Ray Dark-Field Radiography. Nature Publishing Group 1–11 (2016) [http://doi.org/10.1038/srep36991]
Purpose: In this article, we exploit the sub-pixel resolution sensitivity of X-ray dark-field contrast for clinical microcalcification assessment.
In-situ microcalcification assessment with dark-field mammography. (A) Sketch of the dark-field mammography setup, consisting of a conventional X-ray tube, a source grating G0, a phase grating G1, an analyser grating G2 and a flat panel detector. Absorption (B) and dark-field images (C) of a cancerous mastectomy specimen with native microcalcification cluster. The insets show magnified images of the microcalcification cluster. Absorption (D) and dark-field images (E) of the biopsied and paraffin embedded microcalcification cluster. (F) Scatter plot comparing absorption to scattering power of the native (blue) and subsequently biopsied microcalcification cluster (red). Mean -ratios of 0.31 ± 0.02 (Breast) and 0.33 ± 0.01 (Biopsy) are consistent within the error margins, suggesting that microcalcification assessment via dark-field mammography is suitable as an in-situ application.