Paper
24 May 1999 Quantitative image quality of spatially filtered x-ray fluoroscopy
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
One potential method to lower x-ray fluoroscopy dose without compromising image quality is to acquire images at a decreased exposure rate and digitally filter to reduce noise. In both single image frames and image sequences, we investigated the effect of noise-reduction spatial filtering on the detection of stationary cylinders that mimicked arteries, catheters, and guide wires in x-ray imaging. We simulated ideal edge- preserving spatial filters by filtering the noise only and then adding targets for detection. Fitters used were three different center-weighted averagers that reduce pixel noise variance by factors of 0.75, 0.5, and 0.25. Detection performance in unfiltered and spatially filtered noisy image sequences and single frames was measured using a reference/test, 9-alternative, adaptive forced-choice method. Performance level was fixed and results were obtained in the form of signal contrast sensitivity. In single images, the effect of filtering on detection was insignificant at all filtering levels. On the other hand, filtering in image sequences improved detectability by as much as 23%, yielding a potential x-ray dose savings of 34%. Comparing results with the prewhitening matched filter model indicated that human observers have improved detection efficiency in spatially filtered image sequences, as compared to white-noise sequences. We conclude that edge-preserving spatial filtering is more effective in sequences than in single frames. Such filtering can potentially improve image quality in noisy image sequences such as x-ray fluoroscopy.
© (1999) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Kadri N. Jabri and David L. Wilson "Quantitative image quality of spatially filtered x-ray fluoroscopy", Proc. SPIE 3663, Medical Imaging 1999: Image Perception and Performance, (24 May 1999); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.349654
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KEYWORDS
Image filtering

Spatial filters

Image quality

X-rays

Signal to noise ratio

X-ray imaging

Fluoroscopy

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