The 6th Workshop on Medical Applications of Spectroscopic X-ray Detectors (SpecXray), hosted by CERN, is a prestigious, invite-only event in Switzerland, whereby experts across a range of medical fields get to commune and share their findings with one another through a series of oral presentations.
Kromek are very pleased to have been invited to this event, where our collaborator Dr. Thomas Zillhardt from the University of Manchester will be showcasing our joint progress in our funded Quantum Digital Tomosynthesis (QDT) project. Similarly to Kromek’s Low-Dose MBI Project, the aim of QDT project is to improve the breast cancer diagnosis by providing better and more precise tools to improve the outcome of breast surgeries.
Alex Cherlin, Kromek’s Principal Physicist, said:
“I am happy to join my colleague Thomas Zillhardt at CERN for the 6th Workshop on Medical Application of Spectroscopic X-ray detectors. Thomas will be presenting some results from our collaborative project on Quantum Digital Tomosynthesis in his talk titled:
Transition to Hyperspectral Digital Tomosynthesis: Evaluation of Benefits in Breast Mammography with Two ASICs
The goal of the project is to enhance the tools used to inspect the recessed tissue samples and guide the progress of breast surgeries using detector-based spectral digital tomosynthesis.
In conjunction with the Low Dose MBI project, further research into QDT will provide us with another angle to tackle breast cancer from. Kromek’s contribution to the QDT project is extending our involvement in helping to save lives with earlier and more effective breast cancer diagnostics, by developing new tools for screening and assisting treatment procedures.”
Talk Abstract:
Transition to Hyperspectral Digital Tomosynthesis: Evaluation of Benefits in Breast Mammography with Two ASICs
Mammography is the prevalent technique for breast cancer screening. According to the WHO, 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020, which resulted in 685,000 deaths worldwide. However, mammography has been linked to non-negligible radiation dose risks and false negative or positive diagnosis. Therefore, there is a significant amount of ongoing work to mitigate those shortcomings. We propose an alternative route to increase the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and improve the tumour detectability by using detector-based spectral tomosynthesis. There is a number of works with silicon strip and photon counting detectors where certain improvement in contrast and tumour detectability have been reported. We will present the first results on using photon counting detectors in planar digital tomosynthesis. Two detector systems were compared: a Medipix3RX quad-detector (Si 300µm) employed in recursive thresholding mode and a single Timepix3 detector (CdTe 1000µm) in TOT mode. We present the first digital tomosynthesis results and evaluate the benefits in terms of dose, tumour detectability, through calcification and tissue differentiation.
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