Facilities and Equipment

The X-Ray Imaging Core is located on the first floor of the Opus Building and the second and ninth floors of the Alfred Building at Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota.

Whole-body CT scanning

The computerized tomography (CT) scanning service of Mayo Clinic's X-Ray Imaging Core is located in the Opus Building on Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota. The commercial, whole-body CT scanner is the SOMATOM Definition Flash, manufactured by Siemens Healthineers USA. It is a leading technology CT system, able to perform:

• 75 ms temporal resolution ECG-gated data acquisition.
• 0.4 mm isotropic voxel spatial resolution.
• Dual-energy CT.
• Reconstructions using image widths from 0.5 to 10 mm.
• Sequential, spiral and stationary table data acquisitions.

Micro-CT scanning

The micro-CT scanning service of Mayo Clinic's X-Ray Imaging Core is located in the Alfred Building on Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota. The X-Ray Imaging Core operates two in-house-developed micro-CT scanners and two commercial micro-CT scanners for specimen imaging that provide high-resolution, nondestructive 3D mapping of a sample's X-ray attenuation properties.

• MCT3 scanner. Designed for traditional X-ray imaging, this scanner yields an image of the sample's absorptive properties by measuring the X-ray beam's intensity after it passes through a sample. MCT3 uses the same X-ray source setup as MCT2, but instead of a lens-coupling system, it has a terbium-doped fiber-optic plate for its X-ray to light photon conversion. This plate is directly coupled to the fiber-optic input window on its scientific-grade CCD camera. This results in a fixed optical magnification of 1:1 and a fixed voxel size at the isocenter of 24 µm with a fixed field of view of 50 mm by 50 mm.

• MCT4 scanner. This custom-configured commercial scanner has a wide range of potential applications. It has a microfocus X-ray source with a fixed tungsten target with a 200 µm inherent filter of beryllium plus about 1 mm aluminum (external shield). It has three X-ray focus modes, which provide 5 µm, 20 µm and 50 µm focal spot sizes. This unit was obtained for higher energy micro-CT and scatter experiments, as it has an adjustable operational voltage range of 40 kVp to 150 kVp. The detector is a large (130 mm by 130 mm) flat panel detector, which provides direct detection of X-ray beams. The combination of the microfocus X-ray tube with the flat panel X-ray detector and flexible geometry provides varying spatial resolutions from 5 µm to 127 µm at varying power levels.

• MCT6 scanner.This scanner has two beamlines: a phase-contrast micro-CT and a conventional micro-CT. Incorporating phase contrast imaging capabilities enhances preclinical imaging applications by allowing for the extraction of complementary X-ray attenuation and phase information that derive from unique interactions in various tissues. The system has a micro-focus X-ray source with fixed tungsten target with 200 µm inherent filter of beryllium plus about 1 mm aluminum (external shield). It has three X-ray focus modes that provide 5 µm, 20 µm, and 50 µm focal spot sizes. The optimal voltage for the phase contrast is 40 kVp. The system has a 4-megapixel CMOS X-ray detector, which has a CsI scintillator and a pixel pitch of 23 µm.

• Bruker SkyScan 1276. The in vivo micro-CT SkyScan 1276 is a desktop laboratory system with the potential for imaging and 3D reconstruction of small laboratory animals, such as mice and rats, as well as tissue and bone samples or other materials. This system combines a micro-CT system and a computer with system control software, reconstruction and application software. This system enables noninvasive reconstruction of any cross section through the animal body with options to convert the reconstructed data set into a realistic 3D image and calculate internal morphological parameters.

  The instrument contains a microfocus X-ray tube with a high-voltage power supply and a 2D X-ray detector on a rotating gantry, an animal transport system with the option to hold one supplied animal cassette with different size options, and associated electronics.

  Isoflurane anesthesia is available for prepping the animal and for use in the scanner.

Fluoroscopy

Fluoroscopy and surgery services provided by the X-Ray Imaging Core are located in the Opus Building on Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota. The digital mobile Siemens Arcadis Avantic C-arm fluoroscope is used for portable fluoroscopy. The biplane fluoroscopy service of Mayo Clinic's X-Ray Imaging Core is located in the Alfred Building on Mayo Clinic's campus in Rochester, Minnesota.

Siemens Artis zee biplane fluoroscopes are routinely used to engage and insert catheters, perform balloon dilations, and inject drugs and stem cells under fluoroscopic guidance into animals prepared for study prior to CT scanning, or for interventional use in the surgery suite.