Application Of Synchrotron Radiation To The Imaging Of Coronary Arteries

The tunable energy, high intensity and high collimation of X-ray beams from synchrotron radiation sources may provide a less invasive method to acquire images of human coronary arteries. Currently the standard imaging procedure is dangerous since it requires that a catheter be inserted into a peripheral artery and threaded up to the heart so that a contrast agent can be injected directly into the artery being imaged. Using a pair of X-ray images taken with monochromatized X-ray beams from a synchrotron, it may be possible to use a much safer venous injection of a contrast agent and still have sufficient image contrast to visualize the coronary arteries. The energies of the beams are arranged to bracket the iodine K absorption edge where the iodine absorption cross section jumps by a factor of six. The logarithmic difference image has excellent sensitivity to contrast agent and minimal sensitivity to tissue and bone. A new imaging system has been built that uses a dual beam monochromator and dual array detector. Two sets of transvenous arterial images have been acquired with it of a patient with severe coronary artery disease.