title: Evaluation of tilted cone-beam CT orbits in the development of a dedicated hybrid mammotomograph.
abstract: A compact dedicated 3D breast SPECT-CT (mammotomography) system is currently under development. In its initial prototype, the cone-beam CT sub-system is restricted to a fixed-tilt circular rotation around the patient's pendant breast. This study evaluated stationary-tilt angles for the CT sub-system that will enable maximal volumetric sampling and viewing of the breast and chest wall. Images of geometric/anthropomorphic phantoms were acquired using various fixed-tilt circular and 3D sinusoidal trajectories. The iteratively reconstructed images showed more distortion and attenuation coefficient inaccuracy from tilted cone-beam orbits than from the complex trajectory. Additionally, line profiles illustrated cupping artifacts in planes distal to the central plane of the tilted cone-beam, otherwise not apparent for images acquired with complex trajectories. This indicates that undersampled cone-beam data may be an additional cause of cupping artifacts. High-frequency objects could be distinguished for all trajectories, but their shapes and locations were corrupted by out-of-plane frequency information. Although more acrylic balls were visualized with a fixed-tilt and nearly flat cone-beam at the posterior of the breast, 3D complex trajectories have less distortion and more complete sampling throughout the reconstruction volume. While complex trajectories would ideally be preferred, negatively fixed-tilt source-detector configuration demonstrates minimally distorted patient images.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. priti.madhav@duke.edu
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Madhav
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Crotty
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: McKinley
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Tornai
mesh_terms: D054893:Cone-Beam Computed Tomography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D008327:Mammography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013382:Subtraction Technique / Q000295:instrumentation*; D018511:Systems Integration; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / Q000295:instrumentation*