X-ray fluorescence computed tomography (XFCT) is an emerging molecular imaging modality for preclinical and clinical applications with high atomic number contrast agents.  XFCT allows detection of molecular biomarkers at tissue depths of 4-9 mm at L-shell energies and several centimeters for K-shell energies, while maintaining high spatial resolution.  The purpose of this study is to demonstrate XFCT imaging with reduced acquisition times.  To accomplish this, x-ray focusing polycapillary optics are utilized to simultaneously increase x-ray fluence rate and spatial resolution in L-shell XFCT imaging.


 The study evaluates three different phantoms to explore different trade-offs and limitations of L-shell XFCT imaging.  The XFCT data acquisition could be reduced from 17 h to under 1 h.  The quantitative analysis of the reconstructed images validates that concentrations of 60 μg ml  of gold can be visualized with L-shell XFCT imaging.  It is presented that subtle amounts of contrast agents can be detected with L-shell XFCT within biologically relevant time frames.  Our basic measurements show that the polycapillary x-ray source technology is appropriate to realize preclinical L-shell XFCT imaging. 
XFCT
Reduced acquisition time for L-shell x-ray fluorescence computed tomography using polycapillary x-ray optics.PURPOSE

polycapillary x-ray optics