Fully 3D Monte Carlo reconstruction in SPECT: a feasibility study

In single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with parallel hole collimation, image reconstruction is usually performed as a set of bidimensional (2D) analytical or iterative reconstructions. This approach ignores the tridimensional (3D) nature of scatter and detector response function that affects the detected signal. To deal with the 3D nature of the image formation process, iterative reconstruction can be used by considering a 3D projector modelling the 3D spread of photons. In this paper, we investigate the value of using accurate Monte Carlo simulations to determine the 3D projector used in a fully 3D Monte Carlo (F3DMC) reconstruction approach. Given the 3D projector modelling all physical effects affecting the imaging process, the reconstruction problem is solved using the maximum likelihood expectation maximization (MLEM) algorithm. To validate the concept, three data sets were simulated and F3DMC was compared with two other 3D reconstruction strategies using analytical corrections for attenuation, scatter and camera point spread function. Results suggest that F3DMC improves spatial resolution, relative and absolute quantitation and signal-to-noise ratio. The practical feasibility of the approach on real data sets is discussed.     

A motion-compensated scheme for helical cone-beam reconstruction in cardiac CT angiography

Since coronary heart disease is one of the main causes of death all over the world, cardiac computed tomography (CT) imaging is an application of very high interest in order to verify indications timely. Due to the cardiac motion, electrocardiogram (ECG) gating has to be implemented into the reconstruction of the measured projection data. However, the temporal and spatial resolution is limited due to the mechanical movement of the gantry and due to the fact that a finite angular span of projections has to be acquired for the reconstruction of each voxel. In this article, a motion-compensated reconstruction method for cardiac CT is described, which can be used to increase the signal-to-noise ratio or to suppress motion blurring. Alternatively, it can be translated into an improvement of the temporal and spatial resolution. It can be applied to the entire heart in common and to high contrast objects moving with the heart in particular, such as calcified plaques or devices like stents. The method is based on three subsequent steps: As a first step, the projection data acquired in low pitch helical acquisition mode together with the ECG are reconstructed at multiple phase points. As a second step, the motion-vector field is calculated from the reconstructed images in relation to the image in a reference phase. Finally, a motion-compensated reconstruction is carried out for the reference phase using those projections, which cover the cardiac phases for which the motion-vector field has been determined.     

Comparison study of temporal regularization methods for fully 5D reconstruction of cardiac gated dynamic SPECT

Temporal regularization plays a critical role in cardiac gated dynamic SPECT reconstruction, of which the goal is to obtain an image sequence from a single acquisition which simultaneously shows both cardiac motion and tracer distribution change over the course of imaging (termed 5D). In our recent work, we explored two different approaches for temporal regularization of the dynamic activities in gated dynamic reconstruction without the use of fast camera rotation: one is the dynamic EM (dEM) approach which is imposed on the temporal trend of the time activity of each voxel, and the other is a B-spline modeling approach in which the time activity is regulated by a set of B-spline basis functions. In this work, we extend the B-spline approach to fully 5D reconstruction and conduct a thorough quantitative comparison with the dEM approach. In the evaluation of the reconstruction results, we apply a number of quantitative measures on two major aspects of the reconstructed dynamic images: (1) the accuracy of the reconstructed activity distribution in the myocardium and (2) the ability of the reconstructed dynamic activities to differentiate perfusion defects from normal myocardial wall uptake. These measures include the mean square error (MSE), bias-variance analysis, accuracy of time-activity curves (TAC), contrast-to-noise ratio of a defect, composite kinetic map of the left ventricle wall and perfusion defect detectability with channelized Hotelling observer. In experiments, we simulated cardiac gated imaging with the NURBS-based cardiac-torso phantom and Tc99m-Teboroxime as the imaging agent, where acquisition with the equivalent of only three full camera rotations was used during the imaging period. The results show that both dEM and B-spline 5D could achieve similar overall accuracy in the myocardium in terms of MSE. However, compared to dEM 5D, the B-spline approach could achieve a more accurate reconstruction of the voxel TACs; in particular, B-spline 5D could achieve a much smaller bias level in the early uptake stage of the imaging period. Furthermore, it could allow better separation of the perfusion defect from the normal at both the early and the late stages of the imaging period.     

4D maximum a posteriori reconstruction in dynamic SPECT using a compartmental model-based prior

A 4D ordered-subsets maximum a posteriori (OSMAP) algorithm for dynamic SPECT is described which uses a temporal prior that constrains each voxel's behaviour in time to conform to a compartmental model. No a priori limitations on kinetic parameters are applied; rather, the parameter estimates evolve as the algorithm iterates to a solution. The estimated parameters and time-activity curves are used within the reconstruction algorithm to model changes in the activity distribution as the camera rotates, avoiding artefacts due to inconsistencies of data between projection views. This potentially allows for fewer, longer-duration scans to be used and may have implications for noise reduction. The algorithm was evaluated qualitatively using dynamic 99mTc-teboroxime SPECT scans in two patients, and quantitatively using a series of simulated phantom experiments. The OSMAP algorithm resulted in images with better myocardial uniformity and definition, gave time-activity curves with reduced noise variations, and provided wash-in parameter estimates with better accuracy and lower statistical uncertainty than those obtained from conventional ordered-subsets expectation-maximization (OSEM) processing followed by compartmental modelling. The new algorithm effectively removed the bias in k21 estimates due to inconsistent projections for sampling schedules as slow as 60 s per timeframe, but no improvement in wash-out parameter estimates was observed in this work. The proposed dynamic OSMAP algorithm provides a flexible framework which may benefit a variety of dynamic tomographic imaging applications.     

Spatiotemporal processing of gated cardiac SPECT images using deformable mesh modeling

In this paper we present a spatiotemporal processing approach, based on deformable mesh modeling, for noise reduction in gated cardiac single-photon emission computed tomography images. Because of the partial volume effect (PVE), clinical cardiac-gated perfusion images exhibit a phenomenon known as brightening-the myocardium appears to become brighter as the heart wall thickens. Although brightening is an artifact, it serves as an important diagnostic feature for assessment of wall thickening in clinical practice. Our proposed processing algorithm aims to preserve this important diagnostic feature while reducing the noise level in the images. The proposed algorithm is based on the use of a deformable mesh for modeling the cardiac motion in a gated cardiac sequence, based on which the images are processed by smoothing along space-time trajectories of object points while taking into account the PVE. Our experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can yield significantly more-accurate results than several existing methods.     

A filtering approach to image reconstruction in 3D SPECT

We present a new approach to three-dimensional (3D) image reconstruction using analytical inversion of the exponential divergent beam transform, which can serve as a mathematical model for cone-beam 3D SPECT imaging. We apply a circular cone-beam scan and assume constant attenuation inside a convex area with a known boundary, which is satisfactory in brain imaging. The reconstruction problem is reduced to an image restoration problem characterized by a shift-variant point spread function which is given analytically. The method requires two computation steps: backprojection and filtering. The modulation transfer function (MTF) of the filter is derived by means of an original methodology using the 2D Laplace transform. The filter is implemented in the frequency domain and requires 2D Fourier transform of transverse slices. In order to obtain a shift-invariant cone-beam projection-backprojection operator we resort to an approximation, assuming that the collimator has a relatively large focal length. Nevertheless, numerical experiments demonstrate surprisingly good results for detectors with relatively short focal lengths. The use of a wavelet-based filtering algorithm greatly improves the stability to Poisson noise.     

Iterative 4D cardiac micro-CT image reconstruction using an adaptive spatio-temporal sparsity prior

Temporal-correlated image reconstruction, also known as 4D CT image reconstruction, is a big challenge in computed tomography. The reasons for incorporating the temporal domain into the reconstruction are motions of the scanned object, which would otherwise lead to motion artifacts. The standard method for 4D CT image reconstruction is extracting single motion phases and reconstructing them separately. These reconstructions can suffer from undersampling artifacts due to the low number of used projections in each phase. There are different iterative methods which try to incorporate some a priori knowledge to compensate for these artifacts. In this paper we want to follow this strategy. The cost function we use is a higher dimensional cost function which accounts for the sparseness of the measured signal in the spatial and temporal directions. This leads to the definition of a higher dimensional total variation. The method is validated using in vivo cardiac micro-CT mouse data. Additionally, we compare the results to phase-correlated reconstructions using the FDK algorithm and a total variation constrained reconstruction, where the total variation term is only defined in the spatial domain. The reconstructed datasets show strong improvements in terms of artifact reduction and low-contrast resolution compared to other methods. Thereby the temporal resolution of the reconstructed signal is not affected.     

Use of 3D reconstruction to correct for patient motion in SPECT

Patient motion occurring during data acquisition in single photon emission computed tomography (SPET) can cause serious reconstruction artefacts. We have developed a new approach to correct for head motion in brain SPECT. Prior to motion, projections are assigned to conventional projections. When head motion occurs, it is measured by a motion monitoring system, and subsequent projection data are mapped to 'virtual' projections. The appropriate position of each virtual projection is determined by applying the converse of the patient's accumulated motion to the actual camera projection. Conventional and virtual projections, taken together, form a consistent set that can be reconstructed using a three-dimensional (3D) algorithm. The technique has been tested on a range of simulated rotational movements, both within and out of the transaxial plane. For all simulated movements, the motion corrected images exhibited better agreement with a motion free reconstruction than did the uncorrected images. This technique may help to overcome one of the major remaining limitations on image quality and quantitative accuracy in SPECT.     

医学图像三维重建的加速技术

利用二维切片数据重建三维结构,在医学领域有着重要的作用.在大数据量的情况下,等值面抽取的计算效率是富有挑战性的课题.本文介绍了八叉树加速算法,以及一个从轮廓线抽取三维模型的新加速算法,该算法着眼于减少对网格点的访问次数,对网格点访问一次就建立所有cube单元的索引值、所有cube棱边上的插值点等信息.最后针对相同的数据分别使用这两种加速算法和传统MC方法进行了比较.从实验结果看,这两种算法大大加速了传统的移动立方体(marching cubes)方法,特别是在大数据量时,加速效果非常明显.     

基于二维X线图像骨组织三维重建的研究进展

医学图像的三维重建是当前国内外图像处理技术研究的热点,基于二维X线图像的三维重建这一新的重建方法在骨科疾病诊疗中的实际应用,不仅能够减少患者的检查费用,检查辐射剂量,更克服了传统的三维重建方式对检查体位的限制。本文结合近年来关于应用二维X线图像进行骨组织三维重建的文献报道,对这一重建方法的重建思路变化以及重建依据的分类进行总结,着重介绍了其在长管状骨、髋膝关节以及脊柱侧凸畸形等方面的应用情况,在对困扰其实际应用的旋转角度限制、图像分割识别等问题进行分析后,认为其必将在人体各组织器官的三维重建中得到应用。     

Murine cardiac images obtained with focusing pinhole SPECT are barely influenced by extra-cardiac activity

Ultra-high-resolution SPECT images can be obtained with focused multipinhole collimators. Here we investigate the influence of unwanted high tracer uptake outside the scan volume on reconstructed tracer distributions inside the scan volume, for (99m)Tc-tetrofosmin myocardial perfusion scanning in mice. Simulated projections of a digital mouse phantom (MOBY) in a focusing multipinhole SPECT system (U-SPECT-II, MILabs, The Netherlands) were generated. With this system differently sized user-defined scan volumes can be selected, by translating the animal in 3D through the focusing collimators. Scan volume selections were set to (i) a minimal volume containing just the heart, acquired without translating the animal during scanning, (ii) a slightly larger scan volume as is typically applied for the heart, requiring only small XYZ translations during scanning, (iii) same as (ii), but extended further transaxially, and (iv) same as (ii), but extended transaxially to cover the full thorax width (gold standard). Despite an overall negative bias that is significant for the minimal scan volume, all selected volumes resulted in visually similar images. Quantitative differences in the reconstructed myocardium between gold standard and the results from the smaller scan volume selections were small; the 17 standardized myocardial segments of a bull's eye plot, normalized to the myocardial mean of the gold standard, deviated on average 6.0%, 2.5% and 1.9% for respectively the minimal, the typical and the extended scan volume, while maximum absolute deviations were respectively 18.6%, 9.0% and 5.2%. Averaged over ten low-count noisy simulations, the mean absolute deviations were respectively 7.9%, 3.2% and 1.9%. In low-count noisy simulations, the mean and maximum absolute deviations for the minimal scan volume could be reduced to respectively 4.2% and 12.5% by performing a short survey scan of the exterior activity and focusing the remaining scan time at the organ of interest. We conclude that reconstructed tracer distribution in the myocardium can be influenced by activity in surrounding organs when a too narrow scan volume is used. With slightly larger scan volumes this problem is adequately suppressed. This approach produced a smaller mean deviation and may be more effective than employing a narrow scan volume with an additional survey scan.     

An anatomically driven anisotropic diffusion filtering method for 3D SPECT reconstruction

In this study, we aim to reconstruct single-photon emission computed tomography images using anatomical information from magnetic resonance imaging as a priori knowledge about the activity distribution. The trade-off between anatomical and emission data is one of the main concerns for such studies. In this work, we propose an anatomically driven anisotropic diffusion filter (ADADF) as a penalized maximum likelihood expectation maximization optimization framework. The ADADF method has improved edge-preserving denoising characteristics compared to other smoothing penalty terms based on quadratic and non-quadratic functions. The proposed method has an important ability to retain information which is absent in the anatomy. To make our approach more stable to the noise-edge classification problem, robust statistics have been employed. Comparison of the ADADF method is performed with a successful anatomically driven technique, namely, the Bowsher prior (BP). Quantitative assessment using simulated and clinical neuroreceptor volumetric data show the advantage of the ADADF over the BP. For the modelled data, the overall image resolution, the contrast, the signal-to-noise ratio and the ability to preserve important features in the data are all improved by using the proposed method. For clinical data, the contrast in the region of interest is significantly improved using the ADADF compared to the BP, while successfully eliminating noise.     

基于未标定图像的手术场景的三维重建

利用一个塑料人体模型模拟病人躺在手术台上模拟手术场景和手术对象,并从不同视角拍摄两张照片.使用MAPSAC方法估计基础矩阵,并用自标定方法恢复相机的投影矩阵.实验结果表明此方法可以在近似欧氏空间中从两幅图像重建外科手术场景和手术对象.     

SPECT reconstruction by simulated annealing

The technique of simulated annealing has been introduced for reconstruction in single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) of data from rotating gamma camera systems. This is a much used technique in fields other than medical imaging but has only been used for one previous medical imaging application by Barrett et al (1983). It is shown that for noiseless data, the method can give perfect quantitative results, even when photon attenuation is included in the problem. This is true whatever the object distribution. With noisy data, mean level quantitation is still achievable although image mottle is worse. This paper describes simulated annealing in the language of SPECT, paying particular attention to the computational tricks which are central to a practicable implementation. The results of many computer simulations are presented to show the potential power of the method. A short comparison with other reconstruction techniques is made.