ArticleEuropean radiology experimental2019
Microbubbles as a contrast agent in grating interferometry mammography: an ex vivo proof-of-mechanism study.
Article in European radiology experimental, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Nanoparticle Contrast Agents for Dark-Field X-ray Imaging.Nano letters · 2025Article
- A closer look at high-energy X-ray-induced bubble formation during soft tissue imaging.Journal of synchrotron radiation · 2024Article
- Exploration of the X-ray Dark-Field Signal in Mineral Building Materials.Journal of imaging · 2022Article
- Comparison of propagation-based CT using synchrotron radiation and conventional cone-beam CT for breast imaging.European radiology · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Grating interferometry mammography (GIM) is an experimental breast imaging method at the edge of being clinically implemented. Besides attenuation, GIM can measure the refraction and scattering of x-rays resulting in differential phase contrast (DPC) and dark-field (DF) images. In this exploratory study, we assessed the feasibility of using microbubbles as a contrast agent in GIM. Two millilitres of microbubbles and iodine were respectively injected into ex vivo breast phantoms, consisting of fresh chicken breasts. Native and postcontrast images were acquired with a clinically compatible GIM setup, operated at 38 kVp, 14-s acquisition time, and with a dose of 1.3 mGy. The visibility of the contrast agents was analysed in a side-by-side comparison by three radiologists. The contrast-to-noise-ratio (CNR) was calculated for each contrast agent. We found that both contrast agents were judged to be visible by the readers. The mean CNR was 3.1 ± 1.9 for microbubbles in DF and 24.2 ± 6.5 for iodine in attenuation. In conclusion, this is a first proof-of-mechanism study that microbubbles could be used as a contrast agent in clinically compatible GIM, due to their scattering properties, which implies the potential use of a contrast agent with a high safety profile in x-ray-based breast imaging.
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