DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.11821446
title: Micro-CT of the human eye (DICOM)

description: Micro-CT of the human eye. This dataset includes:<br>1) part of the globe;2) anterior chamber angle (iris and ciliary body);3) aqueous humour outflow system;4) cornea;5) lens;6) retina;7) epiretinal membrane.<br>X-ray study were conducted on equipment of Research and Education Center "Materials" Don State Technical University (http://nano.donstu.ru) using an Xradia Versa 520 unit (Carl Zeiss X-ray Microscopy, Inc., USA). Data exported to DICOM file format.<br><br>A human sample was obtained from a patient who underwent enucleation of the eye due to uveal melanoma. One half of the sample underwent conventional histopathological examination including fixation in 4% phosphate-buffered formalin, paraffin embedding, hematoxylin-eosin staining. Thin slices obtained from the paraffin block were subsequently imaged by transmitted light microscopy and scanned using a histological slide scanner Aperio2 (Leica, Germany). The remaining half of the anterior segment of the eye, two samples of the retina and crystalline lens were selected during gross examination in the pathology department and subsequently placed in 4% phosphate-buffered formalin for 48 hours.<br>All samples underwent iodine staining, described by <i>Silva, J. M. S. et al. Three-dimensional non-destructive soft-tissue visualization with X-ray staining micro-tomography. Sci. Rep. 5, 14088; doi: 10.1038/srep14088 (2015).</i> Initially a specimen is dehydrated in a graded series of ethanol solutions with distilled water (50%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 96%, 100%) for 1 hour with 1 hour between each step. Graded ethanol concentration limits sample shrinkage and increases cell permeability for the contrast medium. After dehydration samples were placed in a 1wt% I<sub>2</sub> solution in absolute ethanol for 14 hours. At the final step of this protocol, samples were washed in absolute ethanol and subsequently placed in plastic containers filled with absolute ethanol and then stored at 5° C.<br><br><br>The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the institutional ethics committee (Institutional Ethics Committee of the National Medical Research Center of Oncology (Rostov-on-Don, Russia), protocol number 34, approval received 02/12/2019). Written informed consent was obtained from the included patient.<br><br>For each scan, the sample was placed at the closest possible distance to the X-ray source. The 2048x2048 pixels CCD camera was maintained at −59°C and the acquisition was performed with camera binning factor = 2, which resulted in up to 1024x1024 pixels sized projection images. The X-ray source filters were selected based on the observed transmittance values according to the recommendations of the Xradia Versa 520 User’s Guide A003030 Rev. B. The exposure time was selected to maintain count (intensity) values &gt; 5000 with the selected source parameters and filter. The Dynamic Ring Removal (DRR) option, which enables small random motions of the sample during acquisition, was enabled for all the projections. During each tomography procedure, 10 reference (air) X-ray images were acquired with equal time intervals between them. The average of these references was applied to each projection. A half-hour to one-hour warm-up scan was performed with the same source parameters before each acquisition.