Low-density tissue scaffold imaging by synchrotron radiation propagation-based imaging computed tomography with helical acquisition mode

作者：Xiaoman Duan, Naitao Li, David M. L. Cooper, Xiao Fan Ding, Daniel Chen, Ning Zhu · 发表于：Journal of Synchrotron Radiation · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1107/s1600577523000772 · 被引用次数：4 · 研究领域：Advanced X-ray Imaging Techniques、Medical Imaging Techniques and Applications、Advanced X-ray and CT Imaging

Visualization of low-density tissue scaffolds made from hydrogels is important yet challenging in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM). For this, synchrotron radiation propagation-based imaging computed tomography (SR-PBI-CT) has great potential, but is limited due to the ring artifacts commonly observed in SR-PBI-CT images. To address this issue, this study focuses on the integration of SR-PBI-CT and helical acquisition mode ( i.e. SR-PBI-HCT) to visualize hydrogel scaffolds. The influence of key imaging parameters on the image quality of hydrogel scaffolds was investigated, including the helical pitch ( p ), photon energy ( E ) and the number of acquisition projections per rotation/revolution ( N p ), and, on this basis, those parameters were optimized to improve image quality and to reduce noise level and artifacts. The results illustrate that SR-PBI-HCT imaging shows impressive advantages in avoiding ring artifacts with p = 1.5, E = 30 keV and N p = 500 for the visualization of hydrogel scaffolds in vitro . Furthermore, the results also demonstrate that hydrogel scaffolds can be visualized using SR-PBI-HCT with good contrast while at a low radiation dose, i.e. 342 mGy (voxel size of 26 µm, suitable for in vivo imaging). This paper presents a systematic study on hydrogel scaffold imaging using SR-PBI-HCT and the results reveal that SR-PBI-HCT is a powerful tool for visualizing and characterizing low-density scaffolds with a high image quality in vitro . This...