Quantitative x-ray fluorescence imaging system for non-destructive 3D tumor histology.

An in-house dual-modality x-ray fluorescence tomography (XFT) and x-ray computed tomography (XCT) system was developed to quantify iodine contrast distribution through the whole tumor volume ex vivo. The quantitative XFT was calibrated with water phantoms containing iodine solutions of various concentrations (0.0175-1.4 wt.%). The vasculature distribution was reflected by the iodine perfusion, which was validated with histology. This technique may open a new, to the best of our knowledge, route to the non-destructive three-dimensional-imaging-based histological analysis of tumor samples.