Performance evaluation of quantitative material decomposition in slow kVp switching dual-energy CT

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Ma, Chenchen^{a; 1} | Su, Ting^{b; 1} | Zhu, Jiongtao^b | Zhang, Xin^b | Zheng, Hairong^{c; d; e} | Liang, Dong^{b; c; e} | Wang, Na^{a; *} | Zhang, Yunxin^{f; *} | Ge, Yongshuai^{b; c; d; e; *}

Affiliations: [a] School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China | [b] Research Center for Medical Artificial Intelligence, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China | [c] Paul C Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China | [d] National Innovation Center for Advanced Medical Devices, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China | [e] Key Laboratory of Biomedical Imaging Science and System, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China | [f] Department of Vascular Surgery, Beijing Jishuitan Hospital, Beijing, China

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Na Wang (wangn@me.neu.edu.cn), Yunxin Zhang (516857326@qq.com) and Yongshuai Ge (ys.ge@siat.ac.cn).

Note: [1] Chenchen Ma and Ting Su contributed equally to this work.

Abstract: BACKGROUND:Slow kVp switching technique is an important approach to realize dual-energy CT (DECT) imaging, but its performance has not been thoroughly investigated yet. OBJECTIVE:This study aims at comparing and evaluating the DECT imaging performance of different slow kVp switching protocols, and thus helps determining the optimal system settings. METHODS:To investigate the impact of energy separation, two different beam filtration schemes are compared: the stationary beam filtration and dynamic beam filtration. Moreover, uniform tube voltage modulation and weighted tube voltage modulation are compared along with various modulation frequencies. A model-based direct decomposition algorithm is employed to generate the water and iodine material bases. Both numerical and physical experiments are conducted to verify the slow kVp switching DECT imaging performance. RESULTS: Numerical and experimental results demonstrate that the material decomposition is less sensitive to beam filtration, voltage modulation type and modulation frequency. As a result, robust material-specific quantitative decomposition can be achieved in slow kVp switching DECT imaging. CONCLUSIONS:Quantitative DECT imaging can be implemented with slow kVp switching under a variety of system settings.

Keywords: Dual-energy CT, slow kVp switching, material decomposition

DOI: 10.3233/XST-230201

Journal: Journal of X-Ray Science and Technology, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 69-85, 2024