Determination of effective atomic number of breast tissues using scattered radiation

The scattered radiation has been used in several industrial and clinical applications since it permits to characterize the scattering material. Several types of information can be extracted from the spectrum of scattered radiation which can be used to characterization of biological tissues such as breast tissues. In this work we have measured Compton and Rayleigh scattering radiation from normal (adipose), benign (fibroadenoma) and malignant (carcinoma) neoplastic breast tissues using a monoenergetic beam of 17.44 keV and a scattering angle of 90 deg C (x = 0.99 angstrom-1). A practical method using the area of elastic and inelastic scattering was used for determining the effective atomic number (Zeff) of the samples, being validated comparing the experimental obtained values of Zeff of several standard materials with calculated values using traditional method based on total cross-section of compounds. The obtained results show that exist differences in the distributions of Zeff of breast tissues, which are related to the content of carbon (Z=6) and oxygen (Z=8) in each tissue type. The results suggest that is possible to use this parameter for characterizing breast tissues, pointing the possibility of its use as a complementary tool for the diagnosis of the breast cancer. (author)