Fluorescent x-ray computed tomography using the pinhole effect for biomedical applications

We propose a fluorescent x-ray computed tomography using volumetric beam and pinhole collimator to obtain 3-dimensional image effectively, aimed at providing molecular imaging with quantifiable measures and sub-millimeter spatial resolution. In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility of this concept and investigate imaging properties such as spatial resolution, contrast resolution and quantifiable measures, by imaging physical phantoms. A preliminary imaging system using monochromatic synchrotron x-rays was constructed at the BLNE-7A bending-magnet beamline (6.5 GeV) at KEK, Japan.