Digital mammography at the Trieste synchrotron light source

The SYRMEP (SYnchrotron Radiation for MEdical Physics) collaboration is developing a digital mammography project using a synchrotron radiation monochromatic X-ray beam and a silicon pixel detector. The combination of a monochromatic laminar beam with a high efficiency laminar detector, capable of single-photon counting, allows one to minimize the radiation dose delivered to the sample, while maximizing contrast resolution and dynamic range. The SYRMEP detector is a silicon microstrip device used in an innovative configuration in which radiation impinges on the side rather than on the surface of the chip and is therefore totally absorbed within the detector active volume. The high contrast resolution and spatial resolution (<100 microns) of the system have been demonstrated by producing images of details from an Ackermann Mammographic Phantom RMI 160 illuminated by a conventional X-ray tube