Rapid Preparation of Soft Tissue for X-ray Virtual Histology

Abstract: When removal of primary tumors is performed by surgery, the surgeon andthe patient would benefit from using intraoperative feedback to evaluate thetumor resection margin. If intraoperative feedback is not provided there isadditional risk of treatment of the tumor. With improvements to the fixationtime of soft tissue, phase-contrast computed tomography (PC-CT) could allow3D intraoperative feedback to the surgeons.The focus of this project has been to develop a method for measuring fixationtime on soft tissue samples and examine ways to decrease the required fixationtime. Furthermore, evaluation of fixatives to achieve image contrast that wouldbe sufficient to accomplish the possibility of intraoperative tumor feedback, inPC-CT images has been performed in this project.