Incorporation of noise and prior images in penalized-likelihood reconstruction of sparse data

Many imaging scenarios involve a sequence of tomographic data acquisitions to monitor change over time - e.g., longitudinal studies of disease progression (tumor surveillance) and intraoperative imaging of tissue changes during intervention. Radiation dose imparted for these repeat acquisitions present a concern. Because such image sequences share a great deal of information between acquisitions, using prior image information from baseline scans in the reconstruction of subsequent scans can relax data fidelity requirements of follow-up acquisitions. For example, sparse data acquisitions, including angular undersampling and limited-angle tomography, limit exposure by reducing the number of acquired projections. Various approaches such as prior-image constrained compressed sensing (PICCS) have successfully incorporated prior images in the reconstruction of such sparse data. Another technique to limit radiation dose is to reduce the x-ray fluence per projection. However, many methods for reconstruction of sparse data do not include a noise model accounting for stochastic fluctuations in such low-dose measurements and cannot balance the differing information content of various measurements. In this paper, we present a prior-image, penalized-likelihood estimator (PI-PLE) that utilizes prior image information, compressed-sensing penalties, and a Poisson noise model for measurements. The approach is applied to a lung nodule surveillance scenario with sparse data acquired at low exposures to illustrate performance under cases of extremely limited data fidelity. The results show that PI-PLE is able to greatly reduce streak artifacts that otherwise arise from photon starvation, and maintain high-resolution anatomical features, whereas traditional approaches are subject to streak artifacts or lower-resolution images.