A novel mammography detector

Mammography is an x-ray examination of the human breast with the goal of early detection of cancer to increase survival rates. Mammography is the current standard of care for screening and is also widely used for diagnostic purposes. The x-ray tube produces a continuous Spectrum and the spectral information contained in the attenuated beam carry information of the Chemical composition and mass density of the breast. Conventional detector technology integrate the energy of the x-ray photons over time thus losing all of the energy dependent "color" information. Such grey-scale image representation limit sensitivity, in particular for woman with dense breast tissue. Increased sensitivity is crucially needed as breast density is one of the highest prognostic factors for breast cancer. We have developed a novel and highly optimized energy resolving "color" photon counting x-ray detector module for use in mammography. Photon counting detectors with energy resolving capabilities count and sort every x-ray photon impinging on the detector into discrete energy windows - colors. The color information provide comprehensive contrast resolution enhancement and can reduce radiation dose to the patient. A prototype detector has been developed with 100um pixel pitch, and it has been tested at the University of Chicago in US. We have developed and tested the first miniaturized integrated circuit which incorporate all the functionality and individual pixel color processing technology for the targeted detector. We have also made the overall design and tested the new silicon sensor made by SINTEF. We have designed a new data acquisition board, further developed the imaging software, and produced an optimized detector camera head. The camera head has been, and will be further tested at the University of Chicago. We have also designed a sensor with ASIC integrated into the sensor silicon. We have published both technical results and test results in IEEE Medical Imaging Conference, SPIE Medical Applications of Radiation Detectors, and presented the results at e.g. IEEE NSS/MIC (USA 2015), International Conference on Medical Physics (United Kingdom 2015), 4th International Conference on Image Formation in X-Ray Computed Tomography (Germany 2016), SPIE Optics+Photonics (USA 2016).

Mammography is an x-ray examination of the human breast with the goal of early detection of cancer to increase survival rates. Mammography is the current standard of care for screening and is also widely used for diagnostic purposes. The x-ray tube produc es a continuous spectrum and the spectral information contained in the attenuated beam carry information of the chemical composition and mass density of the breast. Conventional detector technology integrate the energy of the x-ray photons over time thus losing all of the energy-dependent "color" information. Such grey-scale image representation limit sensitivity, in particular for woman with dense breast tissue. Increased sensitivity is crucially needed as breast density is one of the highest prognostic factors for breast cancer. We propose the development of a novel and highly optimized energy resolving "color" photon counting x-ray detector module for use in mammography. Photon counting detectors with energy resolving capabilities count and sort ever y x-ray photon impinging on the detector into discrete energy windows - colors. The color information provide comprehensive contrast resolution enhancement and can reduce radiation dose to the patient. The most notable fields of research relates to the development of an effective and high spatial image resolution sensor as well as the read-out electronics sitting on the novel detector module tile. A miniaturized integrated circuit will be developed to incorporate the individual pixel color processing te chnology. We will further optimize for a highly reliable and cost-effective production process. In order to demonstrate the technology achievement we will develop a custom made camera head with multiple detector module tiles optimally arranged to cover th e full field of view for mammography. The camera head will be integrated into an x-ray gantry to assess the imaging performance metrics and to perform clinical study of post-mortem breast specimens.