AT THE FRONTIERS OF DIGITAL MAMMOGRAPHY - SYRMEP

The SYRMEP (SYnchrotron Radiation for MEdical Physics) collaboration i s presently taking data at a beamline at the synchrotron ELETTRA in Tr ieste to study the performances of a digital silicon pixel imaging sys tem for mammography. Images are obtained with a scanning technique in the energy range 15-30 keV. The readout electronics operates in a sing le photon counting mode with a photon rate of about 10(6)/(mm(2) s), w hich is still 4 times lower than the maximum rate reachable with the p resent beamline configuration. Two different detector layouts have bee n designed, the first one consisting of a single-layer silicon microst rip detector positioned edge-on with respect to the beam, and the seco nd innovative one represented by a matrix of these detectors stacked t o cover the full beam dimension (100 x 4 mm(2)). We present here the r esults obtained with a single-layer detector and a double-layer detect or (both 5 cm wide) with mammographic phantoms and human breast tissue . (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.