Quantitative evaluation of regularized phase retrieval algorithms on bone scaffolds seeded with bone cells

In the field of regenerative medicine, there has been a growing interest in studying the combination of bone scaffolds and cells that can maximize newly formed bone. In-line phase-contrast x-ray tomography was used to image porous bone scaffolds (Skelite(©)), seeded with bone forming cells. This technique allows the quantification of both mineralized and soft tissue, unlike with classical x-ray micro-computed tomography. Phase contrast images were acquired at four distances. The reconstruction is typically performed in two successive steps: phase retrieval and tomographic reconstruction. In this work, different regularization methods were applied to the phase retrieval process. The application of a priori terms for heterogeneous objects enables quantitative 3D imaging of not only bone morphology, mineralization, and soft tissue formation, but also cells trapped in the pre-bone matrix. A statistical study was performed to derive statistically significant information on the different culture conditions.