Spondyloarthritis is an inflammatory rheumatic disease characterized by inflammation of the bone and soft tissues, such as enthesis and synovial membrane, in the spine and peripheral joint. Early diagnosis of this disease plays an important role in deciding the possible treatments but has remained a challenge for decades. Several imaging modalities exist, such as X-ray radiography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and Computed Tomography (CT). However, they are not suitable for the early diagnostics of Spondyloarthritis because of their inability to depict active inflammations. This paper demonstrates the application of a novel X-ray phase contrast imaging (PCI) technique that allows imaging of weakly absorbing tissues with better sensitivities than other conventional imaging modalities. A PCI imaging procedure involving 6 affected (SKG induced) and 6 control mice ankles was carried out at the European Synchrotron (ESRF). Results from the high-resolution X-ray phase contrast tomography performed on the mice’s ankles are presented. It was observed that the improved contrast of the soft tissues could allow us to visualize the inflammations in the form of swelling of the synovial membrane. Deep learning techniques are used to segment and evaluate inflammations. The results obtained in this work highlight the ability of the PCI technique to detect inflammations more efficiently than the other conventionally existing modalities.
X-ray phase contrast imaging has been proven to have a great interest for the diagnosis and the study of many different pathologies, especially for osteoarticular diseases as it allows to visualize every kind of tissue of the joint within a single image. For the time being, phase contrast tomography has been reserved to synchrotrons and its clinical transfer has therefore become a major challenge in the past decades. Different phase contrast imaging techniques are currently studied for that purpose: Grating interferometry, edge illumination and more recently speckle-based imaging. Because of its simplicity, in this work we study the possibility of transferring speckle-based imaging on conventional x-ray sources. The main challenges we have to face are the loss of spatial and temporal coherence of the conventional sources and the loss in resolution when compared to synchrotrons. We present here a numerical simulation code that we can use to study the influence of different experimental parameters. We also introduce a new phase retrieval algorithm for low coherence systems and compare it to already existing ones, showing that it is already performs well, even for conventional sources.
Standard histopathological examination is the gold standard for many disease diagnoses although the technique is limited with no full 3D volume analysis possible. Three dimensional X-ray Phase-Contrast Imaging(PCI) methods have been under constant and fast developments in the recent decades due to their superior performance for imaging low density objects and their ability to provide complementary information compared to attenuation based imaging. Despite the progresses, X-ray Phase Contrast Tomography still encounters remaining challenges to overcome on its way to become a routine non-invasive technique allowing the 3D assessment of tissue architecture in laboratory set-ups. Speckle Based Imaging (SBI) forms a new class of X-ray PCI techniques, sensitive to the first derivative of the phase. The set-up involved and the simplicity of implementation provide many advantages to SBI such as having no field of view and no resolution limitation in addition to have low requirements on the beam coherences. These advantages make SBI a good candidate for the transfer on conventional sources. In this work, we present preliminary results obtained on a conventional μCT and their comparison with data acquired at the European Synchrotron. We used a new phase retrieval algorithm based on optical energy conservation. We applied the method on both phantoms and biological samples in order to evaluate its quantitativeness for a transfer. A comparison to previously available speckle tracking algorithms is also performed. We demonstrate that the combination of the phase retrieval method with a standard μCT can achieve high resolution and high contrast within a few minutes, with a comparable image quality to the results obtained using synchrotron light.
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