Efficacy of fixed filtration for rapid kVp-switching dual energy x-ray systems: experimental verification

Yuan Yao; Adam S. Wang; Norbert J. Pelc

doi:10.1117/12.913222

Abstract

The dose efficiency of dual energy imaging can be improved if the spectra are filtered to increase spectral separation. Our preliminary simulations showed that a fixed Gd filter can be efficacious in rapid kVp-switching systems. We conducted physical experiments on a table top x-ray system to verify the performance improvement before moving forward to a real CT scanner. We chose a commercial Gd₂O₂S screen as our filter and used an acrylic-copper step wedge phantom. Data were collected at 70 and 125 kVp, with and without the filter. The tube current was adjusted to make the exposure rate with and without the filter to be roughly the same. The data were decomposed into basis material images and the variance of the decomposition was measured for each acrylic-copper thickness pair. Simulations were done with the same experimental settings for comparison and validation. The experiments verified that a Gd filter can reduce the variance at fixed dose. The variance reduction is monotonically stronger as the object becomes more attenuating. This study demonstrates the potential of fixed Gd filtration to improve the dose efficiency and material decomposition precision for rapid kVp-switching dual energy systems.

Citation Download Citation

Yuan Yao, Yuan Yao, Adam S. Wang, Adam S. Wang, Norbert J. Pelc, Norbert J. Pelc, } "Efficacy of fixed filtration for rapid kVp-switching dual energy x-ray systems: experimental verification", Proc. SPIE 8313, Medical Imaging 2012: Physics of Medical Imaging, 83131F (3 March 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.913222; https://doi.org/10.1117/12.913222

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