Academic literature on the topic 'Dual energy cone beam CT'

Abstract Despite the improvements in image quality of cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans, application remains limited to patient positioning. In this study, we propose to improve image quality by dual energy (DE) imaging and iterative reconstruction using least squares fitting with total variation (TV) regularization. The generalization of TV called total nuclear variation (TNV) was used to generate DE images. We acquired single energy (SE) and DE scans of an image quality phantom (IQP) and of an anthropomorphic human male phantom (HMP). The DE scans were dual arc acquisitions of 70 kV and 130 kV with a variable dose partitioning between low energy (LE) and high energy (HE) arcs. To investigate potential benefits from a larger spectral separation between LE and HE, DE scans with an additional 2 mm copper beam filtration in the HE arc were acquired for the IQP. The DE TNV scans were compared to SE scans reconstructed with FDK and iterative TV with varying parameters. The contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), spatial frequency, and structural similarity (SSIM) were used as image quality metrics. Results showed largely improved image quality for DE TNV over FDK for both phantoms. DE TNV with the highest dose allocation in the LE arm yielded the highest CNR. Compared to SE TV, these DE TNV results had a slightly lower CNR with similar spatial resolution for the IQP. A decrease in the dose allocated to the LE arm improved the spatial resolution with a trade-off against CNR. For the HMP, DE TNV displayed a lower CNR and/or lower spatial resolution depending on the reconstruction parameters. Regarding the SSIM, DE TNV was superior to FDK and SE TV for both phantoms. The additional beam filtration for the IQP led to improved image quality in all metrics, surpassing the SE TV results in CNR and spatial resolution.

Purpose. To develop a dual energy imaging method to improve the accuracy of electron density measurement with a cone-beam CT (CBCT) device.Materials and Methods. The imaging system is the XVI CBCT system on Elekta Synergy linac. Projection data were acquired with the high and low energy X-ray, respectively, to set up a basis material decomposition model. Virtual phantom simulation and phantoms experiments were carried out for quantitative evaluation of the method. Phantoms were also scanned twice with the high and low energy X-ray, respectively. The data were decomposed into projections of the two basis material coefficients according to the model set up earlier. The two sets of decomposed projections were used to reconstruct CBCT images of the basis material coefficients. Then, the images of electron densities were calculated with these CBCT images.Results. The difference between the calculated and theoretical values was within 2% and the correlation coefficient of them was about 1.0. The dual energy imaging method obtained more accurate electron density values and reduced the beam hardening artifacts obviously.Conclusion. A novel dual energy CBCT imaging method to calculate the electron densities was developed. It can acquire more accurate values and provide a platform potentially for dose calculation.

La proton thérapie est une modalité de traitement du cancer qu’utilise des faisceaux de protons. Les systèmes de planification de traitement actuels se basent sur une image de l’anatomie du patient acquise par tomodensitométrie. Le pouvoir d’arrêt des protons relatif à l’eau (Stopping Power Ratio en Anglais, SPR) est déterminé à partir des unités Hounsfield (Hounsfield Units en Anglais, HU) pour calculer la dose absorbée au patient. Les protons sont plus vulnérables que les photons aux modifications du SPR du tissu dans la direction du faisceau dues au mouvement, désalignement ou changements anatomiques. De plus, les inexactitudes survenues de la CT de planification et intrinsèques à la conversion HU-SPR contribuent énormément à l’incertitude de la portée des protons. Dans la pratique clinique, au volume de traitement s’ajoutent des marges de sécurité pour tenir en compte ces incertitudes en détriment de perdre la capacité d’épargner les tissus autour de la tumeur. L’usage de l’imagerie bi-énergie en proton thérapie a été proposé pour la première fois en 2009 pour mieux estimer le SPR du patient par rapport à l’imagerie mono-énergie. Le but de cette thèse est d’étudier la potentielle amélioration de l’estimation du SPR des protons en utilisant l’imagerie bi-énergie, pour ainsi réduire l’incertitude dans la prédiction de la portée des protons dans le patient. Cette thèse est appliquée à un nouveau système d’imagerie, l’Imaging Ring (IR), un scanner de tomodensitométrie conique (Cone-Beam CT en Anglais, CBCT) développé pour la radiothérapie guidée par l’image. L’IR est équipé d’une source de rayons X avec un système d’alternance rapide du voltage, synchronisé avec une roue contenant des filtres de différents matériaux que permet des acquisitions CBCT multi-énergie. La première contribution est une méthode pour calibrer les modèles de source et la réponse du détecteur pour être utilisés en simulations d’imagerie X. Deuxièmement, les recherches ont évalué les facteurs que peuvent avoir un impact sur les résultats du procès de décomposition bi-énergie, dès paramètres d’acquisition au post-traitement. Les deux domaines, image et basée en la projection, ont été minutieusement étudiés, avec un spéciale accent aux approches basés en la projection. Deux nouvelles bases de décomposition ont été proposées pour estimer le SPR, sans avoir besoin d’une variable intermédiaire comme le nombre atomique effectif. La dernière partie propose une estimation du SPR des fantômes de caractérisation tissulaire et d’un fantôme anthropomorphique à partir d’acquisitions avec l’IR. Il a été implémentée une correction du diffusé, et il a été proposée une routine pour interpoler linéairement les sinogrammes de basse et haute énergie des acquisitions bi-énergie pour pouvoir réaliser des décompositions en matériaux avec données réelles. Les valeurs réconstruits du SPR ont été comparées aux valeurs du SPR expérimentales déterminés avec un faisceau d’ions de carbone
Proton therapy is a promising radiation treatment modality that uses proton beams to treat cancer. Current treatment planning systems rely on an X-ray computed tomography (CT) image of the patient's anatomy to design the treatment plan. The proton stopping-power ratio relative to water (SPR) is derived from CT numbers (HU) to compute the absorbed dose in the patient. Protons are more vulnerable than photons to changes in tissue SPR in the beam direction caused by movement, misalignment or anatomical changes. In addition, inaccuracies arising from the planning CT and intrinsic to the HU-SPR conversion greatly contribute to the proton range uncertainty. In clinical practice, safety margins are added to the treatment volume to account for these uncertainties at the expense of losing organ-sparing capabilities. The use of dual-energy (DE) in proton therapy was first suggested in 2009 to better estimate the SPR with respect to single-energy X-ray imaging. The aim of this thesis work is to investigate the potential improvement in determining proton SPR using DE to reduce the uncertainty in predicting the proton range in the patient. This PhD work is applied to a new imaging device, the Imaging Ring (IR), which is a cone-beam CT (CBCT) scanner developed for image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT). The IR is equipped with a fast kV switching X-ray source, synchronized with a filter wheel, allowing for multi-energy CBCT imaging. The first contribution of this thesis is a method to calibrate a model for the X-ray source and the detector response to be used in X-ray image simulations. It has been validated experimentally on three CBCT scanners. Secondly, the investigations have evaluated the factors that have an impact on the outcome of the DE decomposition process, from the acquisition parameters to the post-processing. Both image- and projection-based decomposition domains have been thoroughly investigated, with special emphasis on projection-based approaches. Two novel DE decomposition bases have been proposed to estimate proton SPRs, without the need for an intermediate variable such as the effective atomic number. The last part of the thesis proposes an estimation of proton SPR maps of tissue characterization and anthropomorphic phantoms through DE-CBCT acquisitions with the IR. A correction for X-ray scattering has been implemented off-line, and a routine to linearly interpolate low-energy and high-energy sinograms from sequential and fast-switching DE acquisitions has been proposed to perform DE material decomposition in the projection domain with real data. DECT-derived SPR values have been compared with experimentally-determined SPR values in a carbon-ion beam

Excessive imaging doses from repeated scans and poor image quality mainly due to scatter contamination are the two bottlenecks of cone-beam CT (CBCT) imaging. This study investigates a method that combines measurement-based scatter correction and a compressed sensing (CS)-based iterative reconstruction algorithm to generate scatter-free images from low-dose data. Scatter distribution is estimated by interpolating/extrapolating measured scatter samples inside blocked areas. CS-based iterative reconstruction is finally carried out on the under-sampled data to obtain scatter-free and low-dose CBCT images. In the tabletop phantom studies, with only 25% dose of a conventional CBCT scan, our method reduces the overall CT number error from over 220 HU to less than 25 HU, and increases the image contrast by a factor of 2.1 in the selected ROIs. Dual-energy CT (DECT) is another important application of CBCT. DECT shows promise in differentiating materials that are indistinguishable in single-energy CT and facilitates accurate diagnosis. A general problem of DECT is that decomposition is sensitive to noise in the two sets of projection data, resulting in severely degraded qualities of decomposed images. The first study of DECT is focused on the linear decomposition method. In this study, a combined method of iterative reconstruction and decomposition is proposed. The noise on the two initial CT images from separate scans becomes well correlated, which avoids noise accumulation during the decomposition process. To fully explore the benefits of DECT on beam-hardening correction and to reduce the computation cost, the second study is focused on an iterative decomposition method with a non-linear decomposition model for noise suppression in DECT. Phantom results show that our methods achieve superior performance on DECT imaging, with respect to noise reduction and spatial resolution.

Gli artefatti da ricostruzione sono problemi comuni nella tomografia computerizzata con raggi X. Essi possono degradare la qualità di una immagine al punto da renderla inutilizzabile. Scopo dell’elaborato è l’analisi di diversi tipi di artefatti, a partire dai fenomeni che li causano, fino ad arrivare ai metodi impiegati per eliminarli o quantomeno ridurli. A tal fine si è proceduto ad una approfondita ricerca bibliografica e allo studio dei testi scientifici fondamentali riguardo all’argomento. Particolare attenzione è stata rivolta al fenomeno fisico del Beam Hardening, che è tra le maggiori cause di artefatti grafici, e di cui si sono viste diverse metodologie di correzione. Sono stati poi trattati gli artefatti dovuti all’apparato di misura e gli artefatti dovuti al paziente. Per quanto riguarda le tecniche di correzione, oltre ai procedimenti di più vecchia concezione e ormai consolidati, si è dato largo spazio alle metodologie innovative, di recente applicazione e ancora oggetto di studio e ricerca, come la Dual-Energy CT e la ricostruzione iterativa. Si è visto come la ricostruzione iterativa garantisca risultati di gran lunga superiori in merito alla qualità dell’immagine ricostruita, rispetto alla canonica Filtered Back-Projection, in particolare per quanto riguarda la Low-dose CT, di grande interesse in campo medico.

碩士
慈濟科技大學
放射醫學科學研究所
104
Abstract Purpose: The aim of this study was to improve metal artifact reduction by dual-energy method in cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) Methods: We used Monte Carlo simulation software (GATE) to simulate CBCT system and cylindrical phantom. Virtual monochromatic CT (VMCT) based on the dual-energy technique was conducted to reduce metal artifacts in CBCT. A cylindrical phantom with 7 different rod inserts which simulates head set-ups was used to investigate the efficacy VMCT on improving the metal artifact of CBCT. Results: The results CNR showed a decline of as the energy ratio becomes better. Noise as the energy is increased and there is a tendency for improvement. % Diff affected artifacts at least 70 keV. Conclusions: Based on CNR, Noise, %Diff results, We suggest the best energy of 70keV. We have demonstrated the feasibility of improving the image quality by dual-energy method in cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). Our research results should be able to provide a route to reach a high level of diagnostic image quality for CBCT imaging in Department of Dentistry.

Proton therapy is the use of a proton beam rather than a traditional X-ray beam in the treatment of cancer. This technique is being developed all over the world due to the unique Bragg peak feature of proton beams. In order to guarantee accurate dose delivery to the tumour, the stopping power ratio (SPR) of the tissue must be known. This parameter is dependent on the electron density and effective atomic number of the material and describes the energy loss per unit length in the tissue. In current clinical practice, the SPR of patient tissues is obtained through single energy CT (SECT) scanning. The SECT scan results in a map of kilovoltage X-ray attenuation coefficients relative to the attenuation coefficient of water for the beam energy. This quantitative information is then converted to SPR via an empirically derived look-up table. If the patient tissues do not have a similar chemical composition to the materials used to generated the look-up table, this approach can lead to diminished dose calculation accuracy. As a result, the patient may experience increased normal tissue complication or decreased tumour control probability. An alternative approach that has been suggested recently is the use of dual energy CT (DECT). DECT is an emerging imaging modality that makes use of CT spectra to create two sets of CT images simultaneously. DECT relies on the energy independence of relative electron density, and the energy and atomic number dependence of X-ray interaction atomic cross-sections. Post processing of the two reconstructed CT images results in two separate images quantifying electron density and effective atomic number. The SPR of the tissue can be calculated once electron density and effective atomic number are known. In theory, the use of DECT for SPR estimation should be more robust than SECT combined with an empirically derived look-up table. This hypothesis has been tested with phantoms of known composition in the current work. Unfortunately, the post processing of DECT images results in effective atomic number images with a low contrast to noise ratio, which can affect SPR calculation accuracy. To counteract this, an iterative DECT image reconstruction approach has been developed. Two image reconstruction algorithms, FBP and TVS-DROP, are implemented to reconstruct the CT images, where an advanced parallel calculation code was designed for TVS-DROP to improve work efficiency. The iterative reconstruction algorithm was also applied to a radioisotope form of cone beam DECT. A feasibility study into the use of this novel imaging method in adaptive proton therapy was conducted. In summary, the objective of this thesis is to examine the application of DECT for proton therapy treatment planning, develop improved image reconstruction techniques for DECT, and investigate the feasibility of a novel radioisotope-based form of cone beam DECT for adaptive proton therapy.
Thesis (Ph.D.) (Research by Publication) -- University of Adelaide, School of Physical Sciences, 2017.

A bench-top dual cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) system was developed consisting of two orthogonally placed 40x30 cm2 flat-panel detectors and two conventional X-ray tubes with two individual high-voltage generators sharing the same rotational axis. The X-ray source to detector distance is 150 cm and X-ray source to rotational axis distance is 100 cm for both subsystems. The objects are scanned through 200° of rotation. The dual CBCT (DCBCT) system utilized 110° of projection data from one detector and 90° from the other while the two individual single CBCTs utilized 200° data from each detector. The system performance was characterized in terms of uniformity, contrast, spatial resolution, noise power spectrum and CT number linearity. The uniformity, within the axial slice and along the longitudinal direction, and noise power spectrum were assessed by scanning a water bucket; the contrast and CT number linearity were measured using the Catphan phantom; and the spatial resolution was evaluated using a tungsten wire phantom. A skull phantom and a ham were also scanned to provide qualitative evaluation of high- and low-contrast resolution. Each measurement was compared between dual and single CBCT systems.

Compared with single CBCT, the DCBCT presented: 1) a decrease in uniformity by 1.9% in axial view and 1.1% in the longitudinal view, as averaged for four energies (80, 100, 125 and 150 kVp); 2) comparable or slightly better contrast to noise ratio (CNR) for low-contrast objects and comparable contrast for high-contrast objects; 3) comparable spatial resolution; 4) comparable CT number linearity with R2 ≥ 0.99 for all four tested energies; 5) lower noise power spectrum in magnitude. DCBCT images of the skull phantom and the ham demonstrated both high-contrast resolution and good soft-tissue contrast.

One of the major challenges for clinical implementation of four-dimensional (4D) CBCT is the long scan time. To investigate the 4D imaging capabilities of the DCBCT system, motion phantom studies were conducted to validate the efficiency by comparing 4D images generated from 4D-DCBCT and 4D-CBCT. First, a simple sinusoidal profile was used to confirm the scan time reduction. Next, both irregular sinusoidal and patient-derived profiles were used to investigate the advantage of temporally correlated orthogonal projections due to a reduced scan time. Normalized mutual information (NMI) between 4D-DCBCT and 4D-CBCT was used for quantitative evaluation.

For the simple sinusoidal profile, the average NMI for ten phases between two single 4D-CBCTs was 0.336, indicating the maximum NMI that can be achieved for this study. The average NMIs between 4D-DCBCT and each single 4D-CBCT were 0.331 and 0.320. For both irregular sinusoidal and patient-derived profiles, 4D-DCBCT generated phase images with less motion blurring when compared with single 4D-CBCT.

For dual kV energy imaging, we acquired 80kVp projections and 150 kVp projections, with an additional 0.8 mm tin filtration. The virtual monochromatic (VM) technique was implemented, by first decomposing these projections into acrylic and aluminum basis material projections to synthesize VM projections, which were then used to reconstruct VM CBCTs. The effect of the VM CBCT on metal artifact reduction was evaluated with an in-house titanium-BB phantom. The optimal VM energy to maximize CNR for iodine contrast and minimize beam hardening in VM CBCT was determined using a water phantom containing two iodine concentrations. The linearly-mixed (LM) technique was implemented by linearly combining the low- (80kVp) and high-energy (150kVp) CBCTs. The dose partitioning between low- and high-energy CBCTs was varied (20%, 40%, 60% and 80% for low-energy) while keeping total dose approximately equal to single-energy CBCTs, measured using an ion chamber. Noise levels and CNRs for four tissue types were investigated for dual-energy LM CBCTs in comparison with single-energy CBCTs at 80, 100, 125 and 150kVp.

The VM technique showed a substantial reduction of metal artifacts at 100 keV with a 40% reduction in the background standard deviation compared with a 125 kVp single-energy scan of equal dose. The VM energy to maximize CNR for both iodine concentrations and minimize beam hardening in the metal-free object was 50 keV and 60 keV, respectively. The difference in average noise levels measured in the phantom background was 1.2% for dual-energy LM CBCTs and equivalent-dose single-energy CBCTs. CNR values in the LM CBCTs of any dose partitioning were better than those of 150 kVp single-energy CBCTs. The average CNRs for four tissue types with 80% dose fraction at low-energy showed 9.0% and 4.1% improvement relative to 100 kVp and 125 kVp single-energy CBCTs, respectively. CNRs for low contrast objects improved as dose partitioning was more heavily weighted towards low-energy (80kVp) for LM CBCTs.

For application of the dual-energy technique in the kilovoltage (kV) and megavoltage (MV) range, we acquired both MV projections (from gantry angle of 0° to 100°) and kV projections (90° to 200°) with the current orthogonal kV/MV imaging hardware equipped in modern linear accelerators, as gantry rotated a total of 110°. A selected range of overlap projections between 90° to 100° were then decomposed into two material projections using experimentally determined parameters from orthogonally stacked aluminum and acrylic step-wedges. Given attenuation coefficients of aluminum and acrylic at a predetermined energy, one set of VM projections could be synthesized from two corresponding sets of decomposed projections. Two linear functions were generated using projection information at overlap angles to convert kV and MV projections at non-overlap angles to approximate VM projections for CBCT reconstruction. The CNRs were calculated for different inserts in VM CBCTs of a CatPhan phantom with various selected energies and compared with those in kV and MV CBCTs. The effect of overlap projection number on CNR was evaluated. Additionally, the effect of beam orientation was studied by scanning the CatPhan sandwiched with two 5 cm solid-water phantoms on both lateral sides and an electronic density phantom with two metal bolt inserts.

Proper selection of VM energy (30keV and 40keV for low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polymethylpentene (PMP), 2MeV for Delrin) provided comparable or even better CNR results as compared with kV or MV CBCT. An increased number of overlap between kV and MV projections demonstrated only marginal improvements of CNR for different inserts (with the exception of LDPE) and therefore one projection overlap was found to be sufficient for the CatPhan study. It was also evident that the optimal CBCT image quality was achieved when MV beams penetrated through the heavy attenuation direction of the object.

In conclusion, the performance of a bench-top DCBCT imaging system has been characterized and is comparable to that of a single CBCT. The 4D-DCBCT provides an efficient 4D imaging technique for motion management. The scan time is reduced by approximately a factor of two. The temporally correlated orthogonal projections improved the image blur across 4D phase images. Dual-energy CBCT imaging techniques were implemented to synthesize VM CBCT and LM CBCTs. VM CBCT was effective at achieving metal artifact reduction. Depending on the dose-partitioning scheme, LM CBCT demonstrated the potential to improve CNR for low contrast objects compared with single-energy CBCT acquired with equivalent dose. A novel technique was developed to generate VM CBCTs from kV/MV projections. This technique has the potential to improve CNR at selected VM energies and to suppress artifacts at appropriate beam orientations.

Dissertation

Onboard cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) has become a widespread means of three-dimensional target localization for radiation therapy; however, it is susceptible to metal artifacts and beam-hardening artifacts that can hinder visualization of low contrast anatomy. Dual-CBCT provides easy access to techniques that may reduces such artifacts. Additionally, dual-CBCT can decrease imaging time and provide simultaneous orthogonal projections which may also be useful for fast target localization. However, dual-CBCT will suffer from large increases in scattered radiation due to the addition of the second source.

An experimental bench top dual CBCT system was constructed so that each imaging chain in the dual CBCT system mimics the geometry of gantry-mounted CBCT systems commonly used in the radiation therapy room. The two systems share a common axis of rotation and are mounted orthogonally. Custom control software was developed to ensure reproducible exposure and rotation timings. This software allows the implementation of the acquisition sequences required for the cross scatter avoidance and correction strategies studied.

Utilizing the experimental dual CBCT system cross scatter was characterized from 70-145 kVp in projections and reconstructed images using this system and three cylindrical phantoms (15cm, 20cm, and 30cm) with a common Catphan core. A novel strategy for avoiding cross-scatter in dual-CBCT was developed that utilized interleaved data acquisition on each imaging chain. Contrast and contrast-to-noise-ratio were measured in reconstructions to evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy to avoid the effects of cross scatter.

A novel correction strategy for cross scatter was developed wherein the cross scatter was regularly sampled during the course of data acquisition and these samples were used as the basis for low- and high- frequency corrections for the cross-scatter in projections. The cross scatter sampling interval was determined for an anthropomorphic phantom at three different sites relevant to radiation therapy by estimating the angular Nyquist frequency. The low frequency portion of the cross scatter distribution is interpolated between samples to provide an estimate of the cross scatter distribution at every projection angle and was then subtracted from the projections.

The high-frequency portion of the correction was applied after the low-frequency correction was applied. The novel high-frequency correction utilizes the fact that a direct estimate of the high-frequency components was obtained in the cross scatter samples. The high-frequency components of the measured cross scatter were subtracted from the projections in the Fourier domain, a process referred to as spectral subtraction. Each projection is corrected using the cross scatter sample taken at the closest projection angle. In order to apply this correction in the Fourier domain the high-frequency component of the cross scatter must be approximately stationary. To improve the stationarity of the high-frequency cross scatter component a novel two-dimensional, overlapping window was developed. The spectral subtraction was then applied in each window and the results added to form the final image.

The effectiveness of the correction techniques were evaluated by measuring the contrast and contrast-to-noise-ratio in an image quality phantom. Additionally, the effect of the high-frequency correction on resolution was measured using a line pair phantom.

Cross scatter in dual CBCT was shown for large phantoms to be much higher than forward scatter which has long been known to be one of the largest degrading factors of image quality in CBCT. This results in large losses of contrast and CNR in reconstructed images. The interleaving strategy for avoiding cross scatter during projection acquisition showed similar performance to cross scatter free acquisitions, however, does not acquire projections at the maximum possible rate. For those applications in which maximizing the acquisition rate of projections is important, the low- and high-frequency corrections effectively mitigated the effects of cross scatter in the dual CBCT system.

Dissertation