Relative properties of tomography, K-edge imaging, and K-edge tomography.

The properties of tomography, K-edge imaging, and K-edge tomography are discussed in relation to the imaging of small concentrations of elements such as iodine and xenon and are compared by means of phantom images. It is demonstrated that the complementary selectivities provided by depth and energy subtraction are combined in K-edge tomography. Using a three-spectrum subtraction technique, the iodine difference signal predicted by computer calculations is on the order of 8000 times that of an equal concentration fo bone. The corresponding ratio in tomography without energy subtraction is 20:1. It is argued that K-edge tomography can successfully eliminate artifacts due to tissue inhomogeneities which presently enable 0.6% variations in tissue attenuation to mimic minimum detectable iodine signals in conventional computed tomography. Various instrumentation possibilities and energy subtraction techniques are discussed.