False-positive mammography results in breast cancer diagnosis can lead to unnecessary biopsies which are invasive and time-consuming. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) has the potential of providing diagnosis-relevant information and thus can be used after a mammography to verify its results and possibly avoid needless biopsy. We present an energy-dispersive X-Ray Diffraction (EDXRD) system and data analysis method which allowed us to characterize healthy and cancerous mice mammary glands ex-vivo. Our technique showed decent glad localization along the z-axis as well as scatter signatures coherent with ones previously described in literature. We used an in-house spatially resolved CdZnTe detector, and a subpixelation technique which enhances spatial resolution. Acquisition time and dose delivered are to be optimized yet, however our results demonstrate the potential of EDXRD systems for depth-resolved breast imaging. Different geometries and processing algorithms are currently being investigated in the development of a future EDXRD clinical system for breast cancer diagnosis.

Date Published: 9 March 2018
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 10573, Medical Imaging 2018: Physics of Medical Imaging, 105732B (9 March 2018); doi: 10.1117/12.2292866

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10573:
Medical Imaging 2018: Physics of Medical Imaging
Joseph Y. Lo; Taly Gilat Schmidt; Guang-Hong Chen, Editor(s)