Monte Carlo simulation of breast imaging using synchrotron radiation

Synchrotron radiation (SR), being the brightest artificial source of x-rays with a very promising geometry, has raised the scientific expectations that it could be used for breast imaging with optimized results. The "in situ" evaluation of this technique is difficult to perform, mostly due to the limited available SR facilities worldwide. In this study, a simulation model for SR breast imaging was developed, based on Monte Carlo simulation techniques, and validated using data acquired in the SYRMEP beamline of the Elettra facility in Trieste, Italy. Furthermore, primary results concerning the performance of SR were derived.

The developed model includes the exact setup of the SR beamline, considering that the x-ray source is located at almost 23 m from the slit, while the photon energy was considered to originate from a very narrow Gaussian spectrum. Breast phantoms, made of Perspex and filled with air cavities, were irradiated with energies in the range of 16-28 keV. The model included a Gd(2)O(2)S detector with the same characteristics as the one available in the SYRMEP beamline. Following the development and validation of the model, experiments were performed in order to evaluate the contrast resolution of SR. A phantom made of adipose tissue and filled with inhomogeneities of several compositions and sizes was designed and utilized to simulate the irradiation under conventional mammography and SR conditions.

The validation results of the model showed an excellent agreement with the experimental data, with the correlation for contrast being 0.996. Significant differences only appeared at the edges of the phantom, where phase effects occur. The initial evaluation experiments revealed that SR shows very good performance in terms of the image quality indices utilized, namely subject contrast and contrast to noise ratio. The response of subject contrast to energy is monotonic; however, this does not stand for contrast to noise ratio, since there is a range of optimal performance for SR (18-21 keV). In comparison to conventional mammography, SR shows improved subject contrast for energies lower than the mean energy of each spectrum.

The comparison of the results of the two models, conventional and SR, proved that SR exhibits better performance in the majority of cases. The proposed simulation model offers the possibility to perform exhaustive search to evaluate the performance of SR in clinical applications such as breast imaging.