Correlation of Diffraction MicroCT Images of Breast Tissue with Pathological Analysis

Identiflcation of tissue types in an imaged sample is limited using conventional X-ray imaging methods. The use of X-ray diffraction effects during imaging has been shown to have the potential to characterize the tissue type due to the fact that each tissue type produces its own unique diffraction signature. This paper shows a correlation between diffraction microCT images of excised breast tissue sections and histopathological analysis. A germanium detector based translate-rotate diffraction microCT system has been built to image the samples. Nineteen unfixed breast tissue samples were collected during mastectomy and tumour removal procedures and imaged. High resolution transmission microCT images were also recorded for comparison. Following imaging, the tissues were subjected to histopathological analysis. Reconstructing on various momentum transfer regions enables different tissue types to be identified in the diffraction images. Results showed a clear correlation between the measured X-ray diffraction images and the stained histopathological sections. X-ray diffraction spectra can be generated for the measured data sets for each of the individual tissue components within the sample. These can be compared with a database of tissue diffraction spectra for identification of tissue type.