Algorithm-enabled low-dose micro-CT imaging.
Micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) is an important tool in biomedical research and preclinical applications that can provide visual inspection of and quantitative information about imaged small animals and biological samples such as vasculature specimens. Currently, micro-CT imaging uses projection data acquired at a large number (300-1000) of views, which can limit system throughput and potentially degrade image quality due to radiation-induced deformation or damage to the small animal or specimen. In this work, we have investigated low-dose micro-CT and its application to specimen imaging from substantially reduced projection data by using a recently developed algorithm, referred to as the adaptive-steepest-descent-projection-onto-convex-sets (ASD-POCS) algorithm, which reconstructs an image through minimizing the image total-variation and enforcing data constraints. To validate and evaluate the performance of the ASD-POCS algorithm, we carried out quantitative evaluation studies in a number of tasks of practical interest in imaging of specimens of real animal organs. The results show that the ASD-POCS algorithm can yield images with quality comparable to that obtained with existing algorithms, while using one-sixth to one quarter of the 361-view data currently used in typical micro-CT specimen imaging.
Department of Radiology, The University of Chicago, IL 60637, USA. xiaohan@uchicago.edu
Xiao
X
Han
Junguo
J
Bian
Diane R
DR
Eaker
Timothy L
TL
Kline
Emil Y
EY
Sidky
Erik L
EL
Ritman
Xiaochuan
X
Pan
D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011835:Radiation Protection / Q000379:methods*; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013552:Swine; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*