The researchers used a new X-ray technique called hierarchical phase-contrast tomography (HiP-CT) to capture never-before-seen images of the human heart. Radiology.[1]
“The atlas we’ve created is like a Google Earth for the human heart,” lead author Peter Lee, a PhD professor of materials science in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London, said in a statement. “It allows us to view the entire organ at a global scale, and then zoom in to ground level to see cardiovascular features in unprecedented detail.”
For their study, Li and his colleagues created two images of human hearts: one from a 63-year-old donor with no history of cardiovascular disease, and the other from an 87-year-old donor with a history of ischemic heart disease, high blood pressure, and atrial fibrillation. To obtain this level of detail, the researchers note, the heart would have had to be donated, as the radiation dose would be too high for a living person.
“One of the big advantages of this technology is that it gives us a complete 3D view of the organ, about 25 times better than a clinical CT scanner,” Lee added. “And we can zoom in on selected areas down to the cellular level, giving us the same detail we see under a microscope, but 250 times more accurately, without cutting into the sample. This ability to image entire organs reveals details and connections that were previously unknown.”