High resolution in vivo micro-CT with flat panel detector based on amorphous silicon

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Yang, Xiaoquan | Meng, Yuanzheng | Luo, Qingming | Gong, Hui

Affiliations: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, P.R. China

Note: [] Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 27 87792033; Fax: +86 27 87792034; E-mail: huigong@mail.hust.edu.cn

Abstract: A high-resolution in vivo micro-CT system for combining with fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT), was constructed and applied in small animal imaging. The fast scanning micro-CT system designed to provide high-resolution anatomic information and reconstruction priors, consisted of a flat panel detector (FPD) based on amorphous silicon (a-Si) and a micro-focus x-ray tube. The Feldkamp algorithm was adopted in image reconstruction with graphic processing unit (GPU). The system spatial resolution of 13 lp/mm was achieved when the diameter of image field was 6 cm with the system magnification factor of 4. No obvious beam hardening artifact was observed in transaxial image of a water phantom after correction. The contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) study of various tissue phantoms was also presented. The in-vivo imaging of an anesthetic mouse was performed to demonstrate the feasibility of our system.

Keywords: Micro-CT, amorphous silicon, small animal imaging

DOI: 10.3233/XST-2010-0269

Journal: Journal of X-Ray Science and Technology, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 381-392, 2010