Structure of the myenteric plexus in normal and diseased human ileum analyzed by X-ray virtual histology slices

Table 1 Basic characteristics of subjects

Age, sex	Disease (years)	Clinical diagnosis	Histopathological findings	Histopathological diagnosis	X-ray
45, M	NA	Control	Normal neurons	Healthy	Healthy
54, M	NA	Control	Normal neurons	Healthy	Healthy
82, M	NA	Control	Normal neurons	Healthy	Healthy
27, W	4	ED/type 1 diabetes	Vacuolated, apoptotic neurons, chromatolysis	Lymphocytic ganglioneuritis	Vacuolated, shrunken neurons, chromatolysis, autophagia
27, W	6	Idiopathic ED	Vacuolated neurons, chromatolysis	Degenerative neuropathy	Pre-apoptotic and dead nucleus
32, W	2	Drug-induced CIPO	Vacuolated, shrunken, chromatolysis, hyperplasia ICC	Visceral degenerative neuropathy with axon vacuolization, hyperplasia, and vacuolization of ICCs, and hypertrophy of the longitudinal and internal circular muscle layers	Only fascicle, no ganglia for evaluation
43, W	3	Idiopathic ED	Amphophilic shrunken neurons, Vacuolated neurons, chromatolysis	Lymphocytic ganglioneuritis with neurondegeneration	Amphophilic degeneration, vacuolated neurons
52, W	4	Idiopathic ED	Vacuolated, shrunken neurons, hypoplasia of ICC	Lymphocytic ganglioneuritis	Vacuolated, shrunken neurons, chromatolysis
56, W	50	ED/Ehlers-Danlos	Vacuolated neurons, chromatolysis, hyperplasia ICC	Lymphocytic ganglioneuritis with vacuolar neurodegeneration and hyperplasia of the ICC	Severe atrophy with reduced volume

Data obtained from the medical records; disease duration assessed in years. CIPO: Chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction; ED: Enteric dysmotility; ICC: Interstitial cells of Cajal; M: Man; W: Woman; NA: Not available.

Table 2 Experimental and reconstruction parameters

Scan configuration	Effective pixel size (µm)	Energy (keV)	Number of projections1	Phase retrieval scheme	Phase retrieval parameter	Ring removal algorithm
Laboratory setup (liquid metal jet)	0.9202	9.25 (Kα)	1 × 1000 (50 s) or 1 × 700 (40 s)	BAC	α = 0.008, β = 0.160	Wavelet
Laboratory setup (rotating anode)	1.072	8.05 (Kα)	1 × 1000 (50 s) or 1 × 700 (40 s)	BAC	α = 0.07, β = 0.16	Wavelet
GINIX waveguide (all samples except for ED/Ehlers-Danlos patient)	0.169	8.00	4 × 1500 (1 s) or 3 × 1500 (1 s)	Non-linear Tikhonov3	δ/β = 50, lim1 = 8e-3, lim2 = 0.5	Additive
GINIX waveguide (ED/Ehlers-Danlos patient)	0.176	7.50	4 × 1000 (2 s)	Non-linear Tikhonov3	δ/β = 50, lim1 = 1e-4, lim2 = 0.1	Additive

¹Due to time constraints, some samples were scanned with a lower number of projections and shorter exposure times (in the overview scans) or with less distances (in the high-resolution scans of the drug-induced chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction patient and of the 40 years old control).

²After voxel binning of 2 × 2 × 2.

³No support, no restriction on phase shift.

GINIX: Gottingen Instrument for Nano-Imaging with X-rays; ED: Enteric dysmotility.