We have applied a synchrotron radiation computed tomography (SRCT) system to the lung specimens and evaluated its resolving power compared with the histopathologic appearances, precisely. An SRCT system has been constructed in the bending magnet beamline at the SPring-8. The system consists of a double-crystal monochromator, a rotating sample stage, a fluorescent screen, and a charge-coupled device (CCD) array detector (1024 X 1024 pixels with 12 X 12 micrometers ² pixel size). The energy of the x-ray beam was tuned to 9 - 12 keV. The lungs obtained at autopsy were inflated and fixed by Heitzman's method. A cylindrical specimen (diameter, approximately 8 mm; height, 15 - 25 mm) was rotated in the plane parallel to the beam. The detected signal was transferred to a workstation; then, SRCT images (matrix size, 800 X 800 pixels) were reconstructed by a filtered back- projection. Finally, 6 - 12 micrometer-thick microscopic sections were obtained and stained with hematoxylin and eosin for histopathologic examination. SRCT images well depicted the terminal bronchiole, respiratory bronchiole, alveolar duct, alveolar sac, and alveolar septum. Different pathologic processes (alveolar hemorrhage, alveolitis) demonstrated on SRCT images were well correlated with the histopathologic appearances.

Date Published: 25 April 2000
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 3977, Medical Imaging 2000: Physics of Medical Imaging, (25 April 2000); doi: 10.1117/12.384493

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3977:
Medical Imaging 2000: Physics of Medical Imaging
James T. Dobbins III; John M. Boone, Editor(s)