TEMPy: a toolkit for the modeling of weighted tissue equivalent material in diagnostic imaging

Area of Science:

• Medical Physics
• Materials Science
• Radiological Imaging

Background:

• Accurate simulation of human tissues is vital for advancing diagnostic imaging techniques.
• Developing reliable tissue-equivalent materials (TEMs) is essential for dosimetry and image quality assessment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a mathematical model and a toolkit (TEMPy) for creating human tissue-mimicking materials.
• To accurately replicate the radiological characteristics of human tissues for imaging applications.

Main Methods:

• A modified Least Square Method with a weight function was used to fit material volume fractions.
• The method optimizes the linear attenuation coefficient to match reference human tissues.
• TEMPy also estimates effective atomic number and electron density of the developed TEMs.

Main Results:

• TEMPy successfully determined compositions for water and soft tissue equivalents (10-150 keV) and breast tissue (5-40 keV).
• Developed TEMs showed a maximum ±5% relative difference in linear attenuation coefficients compared to reference tissues.
• The toolkit is validated for creating materials with high radiological fidelity.

Conclusions:

• TEMPy enables the formulation of precise tissue-equivalent materials for medical imaging phantoms.
• This toolkit supports the development of more accurate and reliable diagnostic imaging tools.
• The freely available toolkit aids researchers in preparing physical anthropomorphic and geometric phantoms.