Peter Bartl

Towards cartilage diagnosis in X-ray phase-contrast interferometry

Osteoarthritis is a common cartilage disease, particularly in societies with aging population. Over 80% of the people over 75 years are affected in the USA. MRI and X-ray can be used to image cartilage, but both approaches suffer from specific drawbacks. X-ray Talbot-Lau interferometers (TLI) have the potential to unite benefits from both modalities. However, TLI setups require to be carefully designed for an imaging task, and the design process itself is not yet well understood. In this paper, we present an optimization framework for directly visualizing cartilage in the knee with phase-contrast imaging. First, we create simulated phantoms and make a setup-independent choice for an X-ray spectrum that maximizes the theoretically possible contrast to noise ratio over dose. Then, we analytically adapt a Talbot-Lau interferometer to the best spectrum for a knee phantom. It turns out that cartilage can be visualized with an effective dose of 1.16 mSv.