Towards 3D Virtual Histology of melanoma tissue by means of lab-based X-ray Phase Contrast Computed Micro-Tomography

Melanoma is a serious form of skin cancer which originates from melanocytes. The diagnosis of melanoma occurs through histological examination, which is a destructive and labor-intensive technique where a “blind” sectioning without landmarks is performed. X-ray phase contrast computed micro-tomography (micro-CT) overcomes these limitations by providing virtual sections of the excised tissue along arbitrary planes without causing its destruction. However, up to date, synchrotron radiation (SR) micro-CT seems to be the only way to obtain high-resolution phase contrast 3D data. In sight of introducing x-ray virtual histology in the clinical practice, compact laboratory x-ray phase contrast micro-CT solutions are needed. This study aims to move towards a new concept of 3D x-ray virtual histology in the clinical trial of melanoma diagnosis by showing preliminary results from a compact and cheap lab-based micro-CT setup based on the edge-illumination principle. A thorough comparison of SR micro-CT against laboratory micro-CT of the very same melanoma tissue is presented and discussed. Conventional histological images are also included. Although the achieved spatial resolution and the scanning speed are not comparable to those obtained with SR, the proposed lab-based micro-CT solution still provides a comprehensive understanding of the morphological and functional aspects of the melanoma tissue in a non-destructive way, thus justifying further destructive exams such as conventional histology. This lays promising foundations for a wider clinical translation of the proposed approach.