title: Estimating scatter from sparsely measured primary signal.
abstract: Scatter radiation severely degrades the image quality. Measurement-based scatter correction methods sample the scatter signal at sparsely distributed points, from which the scatter profile is estimated and deterministically removed from the projection image. The estimation of the scatter profile is generally done through a spline interpolation and the resulting scatter profile is quite smooth. Consequently, the noise is intact and the signal-to-noise ratio is reduced in the projection image after scatter correction, leading to image artifacts and increased noise in the reconstruction images. We propose a simple and effective method, referred to as filtered scatter-to-primary ratio ([Formula: see text]-SPR) estimation, to estimate the scatter profile using the sparsely sampled scatter signal. Using the primary sampling device and the stationary digital tomosynthesis systems previously developed in our lab, we evaluated and compared the [Formula: see text]-SPR method in comparison with existing methods in terms of contrast ratio, signal difference-to-noise ratio, and modulation transfer function. A significant improvement in image quality is observed in both the projection and the reconstruction images using the proposed method.
authors.affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Department of Physics and Astronomy, Chapel Hill, United States.
authors.forename: Gongting
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Chapel Hill, United States; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Applied Physical Sciences, Chapel Hill, United States.
authors.forename: Christina R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Inscoe
authors.affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Department of Applied Physical Sciences, Chapel Hill, United States.
authors.forename: Jabari
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Calliste
authors.affiliation: XinVivo , Morrisville, United States.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shan
authors.affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Chapel Hill, United States; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Radiology, Chapel Hill, United States.
authors.forename: Yueh Z
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Chapel Hill, United States; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Applied Physical Sciences, Chapel Hill, United States; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Lineberger Cancer Center, Chapel Hill, United States.
authors.forename: Otto
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Chapel Hill, United States; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of Applied Physical Sciences, Chapel Hill, United States.
authors.forename: Jianping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lu
keywords: CNT x-ray source; digital tomosynthesis; measurement-based scatter correction; primary sampling device; scatter estimation; stationary digital breast tomosynthesis