@inproceedings{5491fd5425ff4dce9544d7836fcac30a,
title = "High-performance soft-tissue imaging in extremity cone-beam CT",
abstract = "Purpose: Clinical performance studies of an extremity cone-beam CT (CBCT) system indicate excellent bone visualization, but point to the need for improvement of soft-tissue image quality. To this end, a rapid Monte Carlo (MC) scatter correction is proposed, and Penalized Likelihood (PL) reconstruction is evaluated for noise management. Methods: The accelerated MC scatter correction involved fast MC simulation with low number of photons implemented on a GPU (107 photons/sec), followed by Gaussian kernel smoothing in the detector plane and across projection angles. PL reconstructions were investigated for reduction of imaging dose for projections acquired at ~2 mGy. Results: The rapid scatter estimation yielded root-mean-squared-errors of scatter projections of ~15% of peak scatter intensity for 5{\^a}106 photons/projection (runtime ~0.5 sec/projection) and 25% improvement in fat-muscle contrast in reconstructions of a cadaveric knee. PL reconstruction largely restored soft-tissue visualization at 2 mGy dose to that of 10 mGy FBP image. Conclusion: The combination of rapid (5-10 minutes/scan) MC-based, patient-specific scatter correction and PL reconstruction offers an important means to overcome the current limitations of extremity CBCT in soft-tissue imaging.",
keywords = "Monte Carlo, cone-beam CT, extremities imaging, nonlinear reconstruction, scatter correction",
author = "W. Zbijewski and A. Sisniega and Stayman, {J. W.} and A. Muhit and G. Thawait and N. Packard and R. Senn and D. Yang and J. Yorkston and Carrino, {J. A.} and Siewerdsen, {J. H.}",
year = "2014",
doi = "10.1117/12.2043463",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9780819498267",
series = "Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE",
publisher = "SPIE",
booktitle = "Medical Imaging 2014",
note = "Medical Imaging 2014: Physics of Medical Imaging ; Conference date: 17-02-2014 Through 20-02-2014",
}