Lung cancer and angiogenesis imaging using synchrotron radiation.

Early detection of lung cancer is the key to a cure, but a difficult task using conventional x-ray imaging. In the present study, synchrotron radiation in-line phase-contrast imaging was used to study lung cancer. Lewis lung cancer and 4T1 breast tumor metastasis in the lung were imaged, and the differences were clearly shown in comparison to normal lung tissue. The effect of the object-detector distance and the energy level on the phase-contrast difference was investigated and found to be in good agreement with the theory of in-line phase-contrast imaging. Moreover, 3D image reconstruction of lung tumor angiogenesis was obtained for the first time using a contrast agent, demonstrating the feasibility of micro-angiography with synchrotron radiation for imaging tumor angiogenesis deep inside the body.