The effect of the momentum transfer on the sensitivity of a photon scattering method for the characterization of tissues

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Abstract
The ratio of coherent to Compton photons scattered by a tissuelike material depends on its effective atomic number. This ratio can, therfore, be used for the in vivo characterization of tissues. The intrinsic sensitivity of this measurement is defined as the change in the coherent-to-Compton ratio for a given change in the atomic number. The effect of the scatter angle on the sensitivity was described previously. The dependence of the sensitivity oni the energy of the incident photons is investigated in 2 ways. The 1st approach is quasitheoretical and is based on computations of the cross sections of the coherent and Compton scattering for various energies. The 2nd approach is experimental and it involves the measurement of the scatter ratio from a series of K2HPO4 solutions for 3 primary photon energies: 60, 81 and 140 KeV. The combined effect of both the photon energy and the scatter angle on the sensitivity can be described by a single parameter which is the momentum transfer. For the limited range of the atomic numbers which apply to trabecular bone (8 .gtoreq. .hivin.Z .ltoreq. 11) the momentum transfer completely reflects the effect of the scatter angle and photon energy on the sensitivity.

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