Photon counting detectors for x-rays have made the transition from research lab to clinical prototypes and into commercial imaging systems. They remain the subject of significant research activity aimed at improving the hardware, designing novel corrections for non-idealities, and exploring novel imaging modes made possible by the rich spectral information they can capture. 

This special section of the Journal of Medical Imaging (JMI) seeks contributions in the form of research articles on the subject of x-ray photon counting that highlight a wide spectrum of research areas including, but not limited to:

• new detector designs
• new correction schemes
• spectral radiography
• spectral computed tomography
• novel image acquisition strategies

Manuscripts should conform to the JMI author guidelines:  http://spie.org/JMIauthorinfo. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their manuscript through the online submission system at https://jmi.msubmit.net. Please indicate in your cover letter that the submission is for this special section.

Each manuscript will be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers. Peer review will commence immediately upon manuscript submission, with a goal of making a first decision within six weeks. Special sections are opened for publication once a minimum of four papers have been accepted; each paper is published as soon as the copyedited and typeset proofs are approved by the author.

Digital tomosynthesis (DT) is a limited angle tomographic imaging modality that has been primarily developed in the past two decades. It is currently being used for a variety of clinical tasks, focused mostly on imaging of the breast and the chest.

Digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) was first discussed in the landmark article by Niklason et al. in 1997, and was first approved for commercial use by the FDA for radiographic applications in 2005 and for mammography in 2014. It is well known that screening of asymptomatic women for breast cancer with mammography has contributed to a 30-40% decrease in breast cancer mortality, however, the interpretation of a mammogram is still challenging, especially for the dense breast. Digital breast tomosynthesis allows for visualization of the pseudo 3D breast, thereby reducing the supposition effect (overlapping normal breast structure) that greatly contributes to the difficulty of reading a mammogram. In the past 10 years, retrospective and prospective clinical trials have shown that DBT can improve the cancer detection rate while also reducing the rate of recall. Many improvements in DBT technology have been and are continuing to be developed promising even better performance of this relatively new technology in the future.

Radiographic tomosynthesis is a limited angle tomographic method that provides sectional images through anatomy using a low-dose technique. Studies have shown that detection of pathology is substantially improved compared with conventional radiography. In addition, radiographic tomosynthesis has a number of advantages of conventional CT imaging of the chest, including lower dose, lower financial cost, and higher patient throughput.

This special section of the Journal of Medical Imaging (JMI) seeks contributions in the form of research articles about digital tomosynthesis that highlight a wide spectrum of research areas including, but not limited to:

• History of digital tomosynthesis (DT): instrumentation
• History of DT: clinical use
• Novel hardware developments including detectors, and x-ray sources
• Development of new imaging acquisition strategies, including alternative geometries
• Optimization of DT acquisition parameters
• Novel DT image reconstruction methods including the use of deep learning
• Development of new digital phantoms for modeling of DT systems
• In silico computational models for simulating DT systems
• Model observers for assessing DT image quality
• Virtual Clinical Trials of DT
• Development of new quality control (QC) or acceptance testing methods for assessing system performance of DT
• Clinical aspects of DT
• CAD/AI solutions for DT
• New applications of DT, for example, contrast-enhanced DT, multi-modality systems, phase-contrast DT, new synthetic mammography (SM) algorithms, etc.

Manuscripts should conform to the JMI author guidelines:  http://spie.org/JMIauthorinfo. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their manuscript through the online submission system at https://jmi.msubmit.net. Please indicate in your cover letter that the submission is for this special section.

Each manuscript will be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers. Peer review will commence immediately upon manuscript submission, with a goal of making a first decision within six weeks. Special sections are opened for publication once a minimum of four papers have been accepted; each paper is published as soon as the copyedited and typeset proofs are approved by the author.