Personalized low dose CT via variable kVp

Hui Wang; Yannan Jin; Yangyang Yao; Mingye Wu; Ming Yan; Kun Tao; Zhye Yin; Bruno De Man

doi:10.1117/12.2082353

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18 March 2015 Personalized low dose CT via variable kVp

Hui Wang, Yannan Jin, Yangyang Yao, Mingye Wu, Ming Yan, Kun Tao, Zhye Yin, Bruno De Man

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Proceedings Volume 9412, Medical Imaging 2015: Physics of Medical Imaging; 94122X (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2082353
Event: SPIE Medical Imaging, 2015, Orlando, Florida, United States

Abstract

Computerized Tomography (CT) is a powerful radiographic imaging technology but the health risk due to the exposure of x-ray radiation has drawn wide concern. In this study, we propose to use kVp modulation to reduce the radiation dose and achieve the personalized low dose CT. Two sets of simulation are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of kVp modulation and the corresponding calibration. The first simulation used the helical body phantom (HBP) that is an elliptical water cylinder with high density bone inserts. The second simulation uses the NCAT phantom to emulate the practical use of kVp modulation approach with region of interest (ROI) selected in the cardiac region. The kVp modulation profile could be optimized view by view based on the knowledge of patient attenuation. A second order correction is applied to eliminate the beam hardening artifacts. To simplify the calibration process, we first generate the calibration vectors for a few representative spectra and then acquire other calibration vectors with interpolation. The simulation results demonstrate the beam hardening artifacts in the images with kVp modulation can be eliminated with proper beam hardening correction. The results also show that the simplification of calibration did not impair the image quality: the calibration with the simplified and the complete vectors both eliminate the artifacts effectively and the results are comparable. In summary, this study demonstrates the feasibility of kVp modulation and gives a practical way to calibrate the high order beam hardening artifacts.

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Hui Wang, Yannan Jin, Yangyang Yao, Mingye Wu, Ming Yan, Kun Tao, Zhye Yin, and Bruno De Man "Personalized low dose CT via variable kVp", Proc. SPIE 9412, Medical Imaging 2015: Physics of Medical Imaging, 94122X (18 March 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2082353

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