Novel CT method visualizes nanostructure of bone

A new nano-CT imaging technique expected to facilitate advances in life sciences and material sciences may help clinicians, radiologists and researchers see the structure of osteoporotic bone more clearly via high-resolution, 3D images, according to a press release from Technische Universitaet Muenchen, in Garching, Germany.

A team of researchers from the university, the Paul Scherrer Institute and the ETH-Zurich developed the new nano-tomography method. The first images made with the technique appear in the September issue of Nature.

“With our newly developed nano-CT method it is now possible to visualize the bone structure and density at high resolutions and in 3D,” Frank Pfeiffer, a professor of biomedical physics at Technische Universitaet Muenchen, stated in the release. “This enables us to do research on structure changes related to osteoporosis on a nanoscale and thus develop better therapeutic approaches.”

Franz Pfeiffer uses the experimental setup he developed with his team at the Swiss Light Source of the Paul Scherrer Institute, where the new nano-CT method was implemented.

Image: Markus Fischer, PSI

In developing the system, Pfeiffer’s team processed multiple CT images to generate 3D images of the interior of the human body. They measured the intensity of the overall X-ray beams absorbed by the objects initially studied, as well as the parts of the beams that were diffracted in various directions. By analyzing the diffraction patterns, the researchers learned valuable information about the imaged nanostructures, as X-ray radiation is particularly sensitive to the tiniest of structural changes, according to the release.

High-brilliance X-ray radiation and fast, low-noise pixel detectors provided the precision with which the pictures needed to be made, Oliver Bunk, a researcher at the Paul Scherrer Institute, noted in the release.

The diffraction patterns were then processed using an algorithm developed by the team.

Using the new technique in a laboratory mouse showed small variations in the specimen’s bone density with extreme precision, according to the release.

“Although the new nano-CT procedure does not achieve the spatial resolution currently available in electron microscopy, it can — because of the high penetration of X-rays — generate three-dimensional tomography images of bone samples,” Roger Wepf, director of the Electron Microscopy Center at ETH Zurich, stated in the release.

Reference:

Dierolf M, Menzel A, Thibault P, et al. Ptychographic X-ray computed tomography at the nano-scale. Nature. 2010. 23;467(7314):436-439.

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