In conventional projection radiography, cartilage and other soft tissues do not produce enough radiographic contrast to be distinguishable from each other. Diffraction-enhanced imaging (DEI) uses a monochromatic x-ray beam and a silicon crystal analyzer to produce images in which attenuation contrast is greatly enhanced and x-ray refraction at tissue boundaries can be detected. Here we test the efficacy of conventional x-ray tube-based DEI for the detection of soft tissues in experimental samples
