Lesion visibility in Phase-Contrast Breast CT: comparison with histological images

A Phase-Contrast breast CT facility based on a high-resolution CdTe photon-counting detector is under development at Elettra, the Italian Synchrotron Radiation (SR) facility in Trieste. The CT system exploits propagation-based phase-contrast imaging and phase-retrieval algorithm. The voxel size is 57x57x50 mu m(3) and the delivered MGDs, about 5 mGy, are comparable with clinical breast CT systems. In the present contribution, the comparisons between histological breast cancers and full breast CT images are presented from samples of breast mastectomy. The high resolution of the breast CT images and low noise due to the phase contrast allow a very fine matching between x-ray CT and histology at acceptable delivered doses.