In this study we present a novel contrast-medium anisotropy-aware TTV (Cute-TTV) model to reflect intrinsic sparsity configurations of a cerebral perfusion Computed Tomography (PCT) object. We also propose a PCT reconstruction scheme via the Cute-TTV model to improve the performance of PCT reconstructions in the weak radiation tasks (referred as CuteTTV-RECON). An efficient optimization algorithm is developed for the CuteTTV-RECON. Preliminary simulation studies demonstrate that it can achieve significant improvements over existing state-of-the-art methods in terms of artifacts suppression, structures preservation and parametric maps accuracy with weak radiation.
Cone beam X-ray luminescence computed tomography (CB-XLCT) has recently been proposed as a new molecular imaging modality for various biomedical applications. It utilizes X-ray excitable nanophosphors to produce visible or near-infrared (NIR) luminescence and combines the high sensitivity of optical imaging with the high spatial resolution of X-ray imaging. With the development of the nanophosphors and reconstruction methods, dynamic XLCT imaging, which can reflect the dynamic course of absorption, distribution, and elimination of the nanophosphors in vivo, has demonstrated its initial prospect in biological and biochemical studies. However, challenges remain in resolving nanophosphors (drug) distributions inside the imaging object due to the high light scattering and complex dynamics of nanophosphor’s delivery. Considering that target with different functions may have different kinetic behaviors, in this paper we present a method to resolve targets with different kinetics by utilizing principal component analysis (PCA). The metabolic processes of nanophosphors (Y2O3:Eu3+) of two targets were simulated and imaged using a CB-XLCT system, with two targets located at different edge-to-edge distances of 0.12 cm. Simulation and experiment studies validate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results suggest that two adjacent targets of different kinetic behaviors can be extracted and illustrated by the proposed method, at an edge-to-edge distance of 0.12 cm.
The penalized weighted least-squares (PWLS) image reconstruction with the widely used edge-preserving nonlocal means (NLM) penalty has shown the potential to significantly improve the image quality for low dose CT (LDCT). Considering the nonlocal weights have significant effects for the smoothness and resolution of the reconstruction, much effort has been made to improve their accuracy. A high quality image of normal dose with less noise and artifacts is sometimes used for the weight’s calculation to further improvement. However, registration should be employed first when misalignment between the low-dose and normal-dose scans cannot be ignored. It will bring an extra work and the effect of registration error on the proposed method are uncertain. The paper aims to propose a new NLM prior model based on normal-dose CT (NDCT) without registration, by predicting nonlocal weights with selecting most similar patch samples from FDCT database. The patch samples are determined by evaluating the similarity between patches from NDCT and the target patch of LDCT. After building up the normal dose based NLM penalty, the PWLS object function is iteratively minimized for reconstruction. Preliminary reconstruction with LDCT data has shown its potential in the structure detail preservation.
As an emerging hybrid imaging modality, cone-beam X-ray luminescence computed tomography (CB-XLCT) has been proposed based on the development of X-ray excitable nanoparticles. Fast three-dimensional (3-D) CB-XLCT imaging has attracted significant attention for the application of XLCT in fast dynamic imaging study. Currently, due to the short data collection time, single-view CB-XLCT imaging achieves fast resolving the three-dimensional (3-D) distribution of X-ray-excitable nanoparticles. However, owing to only one angle projection data is used in the reconstruction, the single-view CB-XLCT inverse problem is inherently ill-conditioned, which makes image reconstruction highly susceptible to the effects of noise and numerical errors. To solve the ill-posed inverse problem, using the sparseness of the X-ray-excitable nanoparticles distribution as the prior, a new reconstruction approach based on total variance is proposed in this study. To evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, a phantom experiment was performed based on a CB-XLCT imaging system. The experiments indicate that the reconstruction from single-view XCLT can provide satisfactory results based on the proposed approach. In conclusion, with the reconstruction approach based on total variance, we implement a fast XLCT reconstruction of high quality with only one angle projection data used, which would be helpful for fast dynamic imaging study. In future, we will focus on how to applying the proposed TV-based reconstruction method and CB-XLCT imaging system to image fast biological distributions of the X-ray excitable nanophosphors in vivo.
Markov random field (MRF) model-based penalty is widely used in statistical iterative reconstruction (SIR) of low dose CT (LDCT) reconstruction for noise suppression and edge-preserving. In this strategy, normal dose CT scans are usually used as a priori information to further improve the LDCT quality. However, repeated CT scans are needed and registration or segmentation is usually applied first when misalignment between the low-dose and normal-dose scans exists. The study aims to propose a new MRF prior model of SIR based on the NDCT database without registration. In the proposed model, MRF weights are predicted using optimal similar patch samples from the NDCT database. The patch samples are determined by evaluating the similarity with Euclidean distance between patches from NDCT and the target patch of LDCT. The proposed prior term is incorporated into the SIR cost function, which is to be minimized for LDCT reconstruction. The proposed method is tested on an artificial LDCT data based on a high-dose patient data. Preliminary result has proved its potential performance in edge and structure detail preservation.
With the advances of x-ray excitable nanophosphors, x-ray luminescence computed tomography (XLCT) has become a promising hybrid imaging modality. In particular, a cone-beam XLCT (CB-XLCT) system has demonstrated its potential in in vivo imaging with the advantage of fast imaging speed over other XLCT systems. Currently, the imaging models of most XLCT systems assume that nanophosphors emit light based on the intensity distribution of x-ray within the object, not completely reflecting the nature of the x-ray excitation process. To improve the imaging quality of CB-XLCT, an imaging model that adopts an excitation model of nanophosphors based on x-ray absorption dosage is proposed in this study. To solve the ill-posed inverse problem, a reconstruction algorithm that combines the adaptive Tikhonov regularization method with the imaging model is implemented for CB-XLCT reconstruction. Numerical simulations and phantom experiments indicate that compared with the traditional forward model based on x-ray intensity, the proposed dose-based model could improve the image quality of CB-XLCT significantly in terms of target shape, localization accuracy, and image contrast. In addition, the proposed model behaves better in distinguishing closer targets, demonstrating its advantage in improving spatial resolution.
Large samples of raw low-dose CT (LDCT) projections on lungs are needed for evaluating or designing novel and
effective reconstruction algorithms suitable for lung LDCT imaging. However, there exists radiation risk when getting
them from clinical CT scanning. To avoid the problem, a new strategy for producing large samples of lung LDCT
projections with computer simulations is proposed in this paper. In the simulation, clinical images from the publicly
available medical image database-the Lung Image Database Consortium(LIDC) and Image Database Resource Initiative
(IDRI) database (LIDC/IDRI) are used as the projected object to form the noise-free sinogram. Then by adding a Poisson
distributed quantum noise plus Gaussian distributed electronic noise to the projected transmission data calculated from
the noise-free sinogram, different noise levels of LDCT projections are obtained. At last the LDCT projections are used
for evaluating two reconstruction strategies. One is the conventional filtered back projection (FBP) algorithm and the
other is FBP reconstruction from the filtered sinogram with penalized weighted least square criterion (PWLS-FBP).
Images reconstructed with the LDCT simulations have shown that the PWLS-FBP algorithm performs better than the
FBP algorithm in reducing streaking artifacts and preserving resolution. Preliminary results indicate that the feasibility of
the proposed lung LDCT simulation strategy for helping to determine advanced reconstruction algorithms.
Photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) has emerged as a unique and promising technology for multiscale biomedical imaging. To fully realize its potential for various preclinical and clinical applications, development of systems with high imaging speed, reasonable cost, and manageable data flow are needed. Sparse-sampling PACT with advanced reconstruction algorithms, such as compressed-sensing reconstruction, has shown potential as a solution to this challenge. However, most such algorithms require iterative reconstruction and thus intense computation, which may lead to excessively long image reconstruction times. Here, we developed a principal component analysis (PCA)-based PACT (PCA-PACT) that can rapidly reconstruct high-quality, three-dimensional (3-D) PACT images with sparsely sampled data without requiring an iterative process. In vivo images of the vasculature of a human hand were obtained, thus validating the PCA-PACT method. The results showed that, compared with the back-projection (BP) method, PCA-PACT required ∼50% fewer measurements and ∼40% less time for image reconstruction, and the imaging quality was almost the same as that for BP with full sampling. In addition, compared with compressed sensing-based PACT, PCA-PACT had approximately sevenfold faster imaging speed with higher imaging accuracy. This work suggests a promising approach for low-cost, 3-D, rapid PACT for various biomedical applications.
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