Some cultured and natural pearls can be reliably distinguished by visual inspection and by the us... more Some cultured and natural pearls can be reliably distinguished by visual inspection and by the use of lens and microscope. However, assessing the origin of the pearls could be not straightforward since many different production techniques can now be found in the pearl market, for example in salt or freshwater environments, with or without a rigid nucleus. This wide range of products requires the use of new effective scientific techniques. Indeed, X-ray radiography has been used by gemologists since last century as the only safe and non-destructive way to visually inspect the interior of a pearl, and recently, also X-ray computed micro-tomography was used to better visualize the inner parts of the gems. In this study we analyzed samples of natural and cultured pearls by means of two non-destructive techniques: the X-ray Phase-Contrast Imaging (PCI) and the Neutron Imaging (NI). PCI and NI results will be combined for the first time, to better visualize the pearls internal morphology,...
ABSTRACT At Munich centre for Advance Photonics, one of the main aims of the project is the devel... more ABSTRACT At Munich centre for Advance Photonics, one of the main aims of the project is the development and application of phase contrast imaging techniques for medical diagnostics to be performed with a new compact high brilliant and energetic X-ray source. High resolution phase contrast tomography of breast and cartilage tissues with characteristics of clinical interest have been performed producing outstanding results. Accurate visualization of fine structures and tissue degeneration in the imaged samples was obtained representing a real step forward in the direction of clinical applications of the high sensitive phase contrast X-ray imaging. KeywordsPhase contrast imaging–Biomedical diagnostics applications–High resolution imaging
Physica medica : PM : an international journal devoted to the applications of physics to medicine and biology : official journal of the Italian Association of Biomedical Physics (AIFB), 2016
Edge illumination (EI) X-ray phase-contrast imaging (XPCI) has been under development at Universi... more Edge illumination (EI) X-ray phase-contrast imaging (XPCI) has been under development at University College London in recent years, and has shown great potential for both laboratory and synchrotron applications. In this work, we propose a new acquisition and processing scheme. Contrary to existing retrieval methods for EI, which require as input two images acquired in different setup configurations, the proposed approach can retrieve an approximate map of the X-ray phase from a single image, thus significantly simplifying the acquisition procedure and reducing data collection times. The retrieval method is analytically derived, based on the assumption of a quasi-homogeneous object, i.e. an object featuring a constant ratio between refractive index and absorption coefficient. The noise properties of the input and retrieved images are also theoretically analyzed under the developed formalism. The method is applied to experimental synchrotron images of a biological object. The experime...
2014 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC), 2014
The Micro-Beam Radiation Therapy (MRT) is a promising newly emerged cancer treatment currently un... more The Micro-Beam Radiation Therapy (MRT) is a promising newly emerged cancer treatment currently under development at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Several safety requirements must be complied with, prior to the human clinical trials of the MRT such as the ability to send a signal to the emergency beam shutter in case of any beam anomalies, in order to avoid exposing the patient to excess radiation. This will require a beam monitor that can work under the demanding operating conditions of the MRT. A good candidate for this application is a silicon strip detector. A novel device layout has been proposed and numerical simulations were performed to carry out the optimisation of design and fabrication at SINTEF MiNaLab, Oslo, Norway. Simulation results and preliminary electrical measurements on wafer level are reported and discussed.
Medical Imaging 2003: Physics of Medical Imaging, Pts 1 and 2, 2003
Two X-ray phase-contrast imaging techniques are compared in a quantitative way for future mammogr... more Two X-ray phase-contrast imaging techniques are compared in a quantitative way for future mammographic applications: Diffraction Enhanced Imaging (DEI) and Propagation. The first uses an analyzer crystal after the sample acting as an angular filter for X-rays refracted by ...
One of the most promising applications of the X-ray phase-contrast imaging is the three dimension... more One of the most promising applications of the X-ray phase-contrast imaging is the three dimensional tomographic reconstruction of the index of refraction. However, results reported so far are limited to relatively small samples. We present here the tomographic reconstruction of the index of refraction distribution of a large biomedical sample (> 10 cm diameter). A quantitative study comparing the absorption and phase contrast (analyzer-based) tomography images shows that the distribution of the index of refraction obtained with the phase contrast method provides a more accurate depiction (3-10 times larger signal to noise ratio values) of the sample internal structure. Thanks to the higher sensitivity of this method, the improved precision was obtained using an incoming photon fluence on the sample several times smaller than in the case of absorption imaging.
Medical Applications of Penetrating Radiation, 1999
One major goal of modern radiology is the improvement of image quality and subsequently the devel... more One major goal of modern radiology is the improvement of image quality and subsequently the development of sophisticated radiographic methods which are capable of detecting low contrast and small size details in organic samples in particular in mammography where the requirements on contrast resolution and spatial resolution are extremely high. Significant improvements in image quality have been achieved by the SYRMEP (SYnchrotron Radiation for MEdical Physics) collaboration which has designed and built a beamline devoted to medical physics at the synchrotron radiation facility ELETTRA in Trieste (Italy). The detection system developed for digital mammography consists of a silicon pixel detector with a pixel size of 200 X 300 micrometers 2 used in the `edge on' configuration in order to achieve a high conversion efficiency. The detector is equipped with a low noise VLSI amplifier chain; at present. Recently, a multilayer detector prototype has been implemented, consisting of a stack of three single silicon strip layers. This set-up provides a larger sensitive area and subsequently a reduction of the exposure time. Digital images of mammographic phantoms and of in vitro full breast tissue samples show a higher contrast resolution and lower absorbed dose when compared to conventional mammographic images. Besides, further promising studies have been initiated developing novel imaging methods based on the phase effects evidenced by the high degree of coherence of the SR source. At the SYRMEP beamline several experiments have been carried out in order to exploit the potentials of two different techniques, Phase Contrast and Diffraction Enhanced Imaging, respectively. Images showing better detail visibility and enhanced contrast were produced with dose lower or comparable to the conventional one.
Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) has the potential to treat infantile brain tumours when other k... more Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) has the potential to treat infantile brain tumours when other kinds of radiotherapy would be excessively toxic to the developing normal brain. MRT uses extraordinarily high doses of x-rays but provides unusual resistance to radioneurotoxicity, presumably from the migration of endothelial cells from 'valleys' into 'peaks', i.e., into directly irradiated microslices of tissues. We present a novel irradiation geometry which results in a tolerable valley dose for the normal tissue and a decreased peak-to-valley dose ratio (PVDR) in the tumour area by applying an innovative cross-firing technique. We propose an MRT technique to orthogonally crossfire two arrays of parallel, nonintersecting, mutually interspersed microbeams that produces tumouricidal doses with small PVDRs where the arrays meet and tolerable radiation doses to normal tissues between the microbeams proximal and distal to the tumour in the paths of the arrays.
Medical imaging and radiation therapy are widely used synchrotron-based techniques which have one... more Medical imaging and radiation therapy are widely used synchrotron-based techniques which have one thing in common: a significant dose delivery to typically biological samples. Among the ways to provide the experimenters with image guidance techniques indicating optimization strategies, Monte Carlo simulation has become the gold standard for accurately predicting radiation dose levels under specific irradiation conditions. A highly important hampering factor of this method is, however, its slow statistical convergence. A track length estimator (TLE) module has been coded and implemented for the first time in the open-source Monte Carlo codeGATE/Geant4. Results obtained with the module and the procedures used to validate them are presented. A database of energy-absorption coefficients was also generated, which is used by the TLE calculations and is now also included inGATE/Geant4. The validation was carried out by comparing the TLE-simulated doses with experimental data in a synchrotr...
The track length estimator (TLE) method, an "on-the-fly" fluence tally in Monte Carlo (... more The track length estimator (TLE) method, an "on-the-fly" fluence tally in Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, recently implemented in GATE 6.2, is known as a powerful tool to accelerate dose calculations in the domain of low-energy X-ray irradiations using the kerma approximation. Overall efficiency gains of the TLE with respect to analogous MC were reported in the literature for regions of interest in various applications (photon beam radiation therapy, X-ray imaging). The behaviour of the TLE method in terms of statistical properties, dose deposition patterns, and computational efficiency compared to analogous MC simulations was investigated. The statistical properties of the dose deposition were first assessed. Derivations of the variance reduction factor of TLE versus analogous MC were carried out, starting from the expression of the dose estimate variance in the TLE and analogous MC schemes. Two test cases were chosen to benchmark the TLE performance in comparison with anal...
Synchrotron-generated X-ray microplanar beams (microbeams) are characterized by the ability to av... more Synchrotron-generated X-ray microplanar beams (microbeams) are characterized by the ability to avoid widespread tissue damage following delivery of doses ranging from hundreds to over a thousand Gray. The preservation of tissue architecture following high-...
Journal of biological regulators and homeostatic agents
Cisplatin is an antineoplastic drug widely used for the treatment of several solid tumours. Howev... more Cisplatin is an antineoplastic drug widely used for the treatment of several solid tumours. However, the side effects related to cisplatin-based anticancer therapy often outweigh the benefits. Therefore, the identification of new anticancer strategies able to offer a better toxicity profile while maintaining the same level of efficacy as platinum-based treatments would be highly desirable. We assessed the efficacy of synchrotron radiation in triggering the Auger effect in human A549 non-small cell lung cancer and IGROV-1 ovarian cancer cells pre-treated with cisplatin. Cisplatin was chosen as the carrier of platinum atoms in the cells because of its alkylating-like activity and the irradiation was done with monochromatic beams above and below the platinum K-shell edge (78.39 keV). On cisplatin-treated cells, at concentrations allowing 80 percent of cell survival with respect to controls, no differences were observed in cell viability when they were irradiated either above or below t...
Some cultured and natural pearls can be reliably distinguished by visual inspection and by the us... more Some cultured and natural pearls can be reliably distinguished by visual inspection and by the use of lens and microscope. However, assessing the origin of the pearls could be not straightforward since many different production techniques can now be found in the pearl market, for example in salt or freshwater environments, with or without a rigid nucleus. This wide range of products requires the use of new effective scientific techniques. Indeed, X-ray radiography has been used by gemologists since last century as the only safe and non-destructive way to visually inspect the interior of a pearl, and recently, also X-ray computed micro-tomography was used to better visualize the inner parts of the gems. In this study we analyzed samples of natural and cultured pearls by means of two non-destructive techniques: the X-ray Phase-Contrast Imaging (PCI) and the Neutron Imaging (NI). PCI and NI results will be combined for the first time, to better visualize the pearls internal morphology,...
ABSTRACT At Munich centre for Advance Photonics, one of the main aims of the project is the devel... more ABSTRACT At Munich centre for Advance Photonics, one of the main aims of the project is the development and application of phase contrast imaging techniques for medical diagnostics to be performed with a new compact high brilliant and energetic X-ray source. High resolution phase contrast tomography of breast and cartilage tissues with characteristics of clinical interest have been performed producing outstanding results. Accurate visualization of fine structures and tissue degeneration in the imaged samples was obtained representing a real step forward in the direction of clinical applications of the high sensitive phase contrast X-ray imaging. KeywordsPhase contrast imaging–Biomedical diagnostics applications–High resolution imaging
Physica medica : PM : an international journal devoted to the applications of physics to medicine and biology : official journal of the Italian Association of Biomedical Physics (AIFB), 2016
Edge illumination (EI) X-ray phase-contrast imaging (XPCI) has been under development at Universi... more Edge illumination (EI) X-ray phase-contrast imaging (XPCI) has been under development at University College London in recent years, and has shown great potential for both laboratory and synchrotron applications. In this work, we propose a new acquisition and processing scheme. Contrary to existing retrieval methods for EI, which require as input two images acquired in different setup configurations, the proposed approach can retrieve an approximate map of the X-ray phase from a single image, thus significantly simplifying the acquisition procedure and reducing data collection times. The retrieval method is analytically derived, based on the assumption of a quasi-homogeneous object, i.e. an object featuring a constant ratio between refractive index and absorption coefficient. The noise properties of the input and retrieved images are also theoretically analyzed under the developed formalism. The method is applied to experimental synchrotron images of a biological object. The experime...
2014 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC), 2014
The Micro-Beam Radiation Therapy (MRT) is a promising newly emerged cancer treatment currently un... more The Micro-Beam Radiation Therapy (MRT) is a promising newly emerged cancer treatment currently under development at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Several safety requirements must be complied with, prior to the human clinical trials of the MRT such as the ability to send a signal to the emergency beam shutter in case of any beam anomalies, in order to avoid exposing the patient to excess radiation. This will require a beam monitor that can work under the demanding operating conditions of the MRT. A good candidate for this application is a silicon strip detector. A novel device layout has been proposed and numerical simulations were performed to carry out the optimisation of design and fabrication at SINTEF MiNaLab, Oslo, Norway. Simulation results and preliminary electrical measurements on wafer level are reported and discussed.
Medical Imaging 2003: Physics of Medical Imaging, Pts 1 and 2, 2003
Two X-ray phase-contrast imaging techniques are compared in a quantitative way for future mammogr... more Two X-ray phase-contrast imaging techniques are compared in a quantitative way for future mammographic applications: Diffraction Enhanced Imaging (DEI) and Propagation. The first uses an analyzer crystal after the sample acting as an angular filter for X-rays refracted by ...
One of the most promising applications of the X-ray phase-contrast imaging is the three dimension... more One of the most promising applications of the X-ray phase-contrast imaging is the three dimensional tomographic reconstruction of the index of refraction. However, results reported so far are limited to relatively small samples. We present here the tomographic reconstruction of the index of refraction distribution of a large biomedical sample (> 10 cm diameter). A quantitative study comparing the absorption and phase contrast (analyzer-based) tomography images shows that the distribution of the index of refraction obtained with the phase contrast method provides a more accurate depiction (3-10 times larger signal to noise ratio values) of the sample internal structure. Thanks to the higher sensitivity of this method, the improved precision was obtained using an incoming photon fluence on the sample several times smaller than in the case of absorption imaging.
Medical Applications of Penetrating Radiation, 1999
One major goal of modern radiology is the improvement of image quality and subsequently the devel... more One major goal of modern radiology is the improvement of image quality and subsequently the development of sophisticated radiographic methods which are capable of detecting low contrast and small size details in organic samples in particular in mammography where the requirements on contrast resolution and spatial resolution are extremely high. Significant improvements in image quality have been achieved by the SYRMEP (SYnchrotron Radiation for MEdical Physics) collaboration which has designed and built a beamline devoted to medical physics at the synchrotron radiation facility ELETTRA in Trieste (Italy). The detection system developed for digital mammography consists of a silicon pixel detector with a pixel size of 200 X 300 micrometers 2 used in the `edge on' configuration in order to achieve a high conversion efficiency. The detector is equipped with a low noise VLSI amplifier chain; at present. Recently, a multilayer detector prototype has been implemented, consisting of a stack of three single silicon strip layers. This set-up provides a larger sensitive area and subsequently a reduction of the exposure time. Digital images of mammographic phantoms and of in vitro full breast tissue samples show a higher contrast resolution and lower absorbed dose when compared to conventional mammographic images. Besides, further promising studies have been initiated developing novel imaging methods based on the phase effects evidenced by the high degree of coherence of the SR source. At the SYRMEP beamline several experiments have been carried out in order to exploit the potentials of two different techniques, Phase Contrast and Diffraction Enhanced Imaging, respectively. Images showing better detail visibility and enhanced contrast were produced with dose lower or comparable to the conventional one.
Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) has the potential to treat infantile brain tumours when other k... more Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) has the potential to treat infantile brain tumours when other kinds of radiotherapy would be excessively toxic to the developing normal brain. MRT uses extraordinarily high doses of x-rays but provides unusual resistance to radioneurotoxicity, presumably from the migration of endothelial cells from 'valleys' into 'peaks', i.e., into directly irradiated microslices of tissues. We present a novel irradiation geometry which results in a tolerable valley dose for the normal tissue and a decreased peak-to-valley dose ratio (PVDR) in the tumour area by applying an innovative cross-firing technique. We propose an MRT technique to orthogonally crossfire two arrays of parallel, nonintersecting, mutually interspersed microbeams that produces tumouricidal doses with small PVDRs where the arrays meet and tolerable radiation doses to normal tissues between the microbeams proximal and distal to the tumour in the paths of the arrays.
Medical imaging and radiation therapy are widely used synchrotron-based techniques which have one... more Medical imaging and radiation therapy are widely used synchrotron-based techniques which have one thing in common: a significant dose delivery to typically biological samples. Among the ways to provide the experimenters with image guidance techniques indicating optimization strategies, Monte Carlo simulation has become the gold standard for accurately predicting radiation dose levels under specific irradiation conditions. A highly important hampering factor of this method is, however, its slow statistical convergence. A track length estimator (TLE) module has been coded and implemented for the first time in the open-source Monte Carlo codeGATE/Geant4. Results obtained with the module and the procedures used to validate them are presented. A database of energy-absorption coefficients was also generated, which is used by the TLE calculations and is now also included inGATE/Geant4. The validation was carried out by comparing the TLE-simulated doses with experimental data in a synchrotr...
The track length estimator (TLE) method, an "on-the-fly" fluence tally in Monte Carlo (... more The track length estimator (TLE) method, an "on-the-fly" fluence tally in Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, recently implemented in GATE 6.2, is known as a powerful tool to accelerate dose calculations in the domain of low-energy X-ray irradiations using the kerma approximation. Overall efficiency gains of the TLE with respect to analogous MC were reported in the literature for regions of interest in various applications (photon beam radiation therapy, X-ray imaging). The behaviour of the TLE method in terms of statistical properties, dose deposition patterns, and computational efficiency compared to analogous MC simulations was investigated. The statistical properties of the dose deposition were first assessed. Derivations of the variance reduction factor of TLE versus analogous MC were carried out, starting from the expression of the dose estimate variance in the TLE and analogous MC schemes. Two test cases were chosen to benchmark the TLE performance in comparison with anal...
Synchrotron-generated X-ray microplanar beams (microbeams) are characterized by the ability to av... more Synchrotron-generated X-ray microplanar beams (microbeams) are characterized by the ability to avoid widespread tissue damage following delivery of doses ranging from hundreds to over a thousand Gray. The preservation of tissue architecture following high-...
Journal of biological regulators and homeostatic agents
Cisplatin is an antineoplastic drug widely used for the treatment of several solid tumours. Howev... more Cisplatin is an antineoplastic drug widely used for the treatment of several solid tumours. However, the side effects related to cisplatin-based anticancer therapy often outweigh the benefits. Therefore, the identification of new anticancer strategies able to offer a better toxicity profile while maintaining the same level of efficacy as platinum-based treatments would be highly desirable. We assessed the efficacy of synchrotron radiation in triggering the Auger effect in human A549 non-small cell lung cancer and IGROV-1 ovarian cancer cells pre-treated with cisplatin. Cisplatin was chosen as the carrier of platinum atoms in the cells because of its alkylating-like activity and the irradiation was done with monochromatic beams above and below the platinum K-shell edge (78.39 keV). On cisplatin-treated cells, at concentrations allowing 80 percent of cell survival with respect to controls, no differences were observed in cell viability when they were irradiated either above or below t...
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Papers by A. Bravin