X-ray breakthrough promises to make CT inspection safer and easier

It was learned from the University of Science and Technology of China that the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility led by researcher Wu Ziyu and the Joint Imaging Research Group of Hefei National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory achieved a major breakthrough in the field of X-ray phase contrast imaging research. The research results have overcome medical X-rays. The obstacles of the CT technology in applying the X-ray phase contrast imaging method lay the foundation for the formation of a faster, more sensitive and safer X-ray phase CT technology. The results of this study were published in the recently published international authoritative journal, the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences". The reviewers hailed it as "a major breakthrough in X-ray imaging research in the past 20 years."

For more than 100 years since the discovery of X-rays, the traditional absorption-based X-ray imaging technology has been widely used in medical diagnostics, biology, and security inspections. However, its imaging technology is sensitive to heavy-element-based objects (such as bones, metals, etc.) and can obtain clear images, while light-element-based biological soft tissues (such as early tumors, blood vessels) and polymer materials (such as Porous plastic, carbon fiber, high polymer) can only get blurred images. In contrast, the newly developed X-ray phase contrast imaging has obvious advantages in recent ten years, and it can obtain high-definition (contrast) images of light-element formed biological soft tissues. However, due to the cumbersome imaging methods, long imaging time, and high radiation dose, it is not suitable for the imaging requirements of biomedical samples, and it is difficult to combine with medical X-ray CT technology.

The research team led by Wu Ziyu used the principle that X-rays have the same front and side X-ray absorption and refraction angles are opposite, and propose a research scheme to overcome this problem. They cooperated with the X-ray imaging experts of the University of Tokyo and Switzerland in synchrotron light sources and conducted a series of experimental studies on mouse joints, brain and other soft tissues, and obtained fully affirmative experimental results. The new method has the characteristics of simple, rapid, low radiation dose (radiation dose at least reduced by 50%) and can be combined with existing medical X-ray CT technology to form a new technique of X-ray phase CT with simple operation and low radiation dose.