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WE‐EF‐207‐07: Dual Energy CT with One Full Scan and a Second Sparse‐View Scan Using Structure Preserving Iterative Reconstruction (SPIR)
Author(s) -
Wang T,
Zhu L
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.4926014
Subject(s) - pixel , iterative reconstruction , imaging phantom , digital enhanced cordless telecommunications , image resolution , artificial intelligence , iterative method , projection (relational algebra) , mathematics , algorithm , computer science , computer vision , nuclear medicine , medicine , telecommunications , wireless
Purpose: Conventional dual energy CT (DECT) reconstructs CT and basis material images from two full‐size projection datasets with different energy spectra. To relax the data requirement, we propose an iterative DECT reconstruction algorithm using one full scan and a second sparse‐view scan by utilizing redundant structural information of the same object acquired at two different energies. Methods: We first reconstruct a full‐scan CT image using filtered‐backprojection (FBP) algorithm. The material similarities of each pixel with other pixels are calculated by an exponential function about pixel value differences. We assume that the material similarities of pixels remains in the second CT scan, although pixel values may vary. An iterative method is designed to reconstruct the second CT image from reduced projections. Under the data fidelity constraint, the algorithm minimizes the L2 norm of the difference between pixel value and its estimation, which is the average of other pixel values weighted by their similarities. The proposed algorithm, referred to as structure preserving iterative reconstruction (SPIR), is evaluated on physical phantoms. Results: On the Catphan600 phantom, SPIR‐based DECT method with a second 10‐view scan reduces the noise standard deviation of a full‐scan FBP CT reconstruction by a factor of 4 with well‐maintained spatial resolution, while iterative reconstruction using total‐variation regularization (TVR) degrades the spatial resolution at the same noise level. The proposed method achieves less than 1% measurement difference on electron density map compared with the conventional two‐full‐scan DECT. On an anthropomorphic pediatric phantom, our method successfully reconstructs the complicated vertebra structures and decomposes bone and soft tissue. Conclusion: We develop an effective method to reduce the number of views and therefore data acquisition in DECT. We show that SPIR‐based DECT using one full scan and a second 10‐view scan can provide high‐quality DECT images and accurate electron density maps as conventional two‐full‐scan DECT.