Preliminary study of human breast tissue using synchrotron radiation combining WAXS and SAXS techniques

Using synchrotron radiation, we combined simultaneously wide angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) techniques to obtain the scattering profiles of normal and neoplastic breast tissues samples at the momentum transfer range 6.28 nm-1≤Q(=4π.sin(θ/2)/λ)≤50.26 nm-1 and 0.15 nm-1≤Q≤1.90 nm-1, respectively. The results obtained show considerable differences between the scattering profiles of these tissues. We verified that the combination of some parameters (ratio between glandular and adipose peak intensity and third-order axial peak intensity) extracted from scattering profiles can be used for identifying breast cancer.