Evaluation of edge effect due to phase contrast imaging for mammography

It is well-known that the edge effect produced by phase contrast imaging results in the edge enhancement of x-ray images and thereby sharpens those images. It has recently been reported that phase contrast imaging using practical x-ray tubes with small focal spots has improved image sharpness as observed in the phase contrast imaging with x-ray from synchrotron radiation or micro-focus x-ray tubes. In this study, we conducted the phase contrast imaging of a plastic fiber and plant seeds using a customized mammography equipment with a 0.1 mm focal spot, and the improvement of image sharpness was evaluated in terms of spatial frequency response of the images. We observed that the image contrast of the plastic fiber was increased by edge enhancement, and, as predicted elsewhere, spectral analysis revealed that as the spatial frequencies of the x-ray images increased, so did the sharpness gained through phase contrast imaging. Thus, phase contrast imaging using a practical molybdenum anode tube with a 0.1 mm-focal spot would benefit mammography, in which the morphological detectability of small species such as microcalcifications is of great concern. And detectability of tumor-surrounded glandular tissues in dense breast would be also improved by the phase contrast imaging.