Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Coherent Scatter Imaging For Mammography, Katie Kern

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Traditional x-ray images are good at distinguishing between materials with different absorption coefficients. The problem with mammography stems from the fact that there is very low contrast between cancerous and normal tissue types. Since cancerous and normal tissue have similar absorption coefficients, using conventional x-ray imaging to distinguish between the two is difficult. Coherent scatter is an alternative method to detect cancerous material within human breast tissue. Coherent scatter can distinguish between tissue types, if the intermolecular spacing of the tissues differ.