Inverse Geometry CT for Dose-efficient Volumetric Imaging

描述（由申请人提供）：计算机断层扫描（CT）自推出以来对医学产生了巨大的影响，许多医生认为CT（以及MRI）是医学中最重要的最新技术创新。进一步的技术改进将具有重要的临床效益，但目前CT系统中使用的系统设计，即使是最先进的临床扫描仪，也无法实现所需的功能组合。我们最近提出了一种完全不同的CT系统设计，逆几何CT (IGCT)，它有望在单次快速扫描中提供广泛的体积覆盖，没有“锥束”伪影，高空间和时间分辨率，提高剂量效率，降低对患者的辐射剂量。我们的初步结果提供了强有力的证据，证明这些目标是可以实现的。本提案的目标是进行研究，包括设计和构建一个能够扫描动物和人类的全尺寸IGCT原型系统，量化其性能，并进行体内试验研究。该研究涉及斯坦福大学和GE全球研究中心（GEGR）之间的合作，基于斯坦福大学在IGCT方面的开创性工作，以及GEGR团队的重要进展和独特能力。这些小组将协同优化系统设计，完善校准和重建算法，并进行详细的评估。由PI领导的斯坦福小组将负责确定临床要求并进行动物和人体研究。由Bruno De Man领导的GEGR小组将负责详细的系统设计和建设。虽然这项研究的意义和潜在影响非常大，但其范围和风险使其无法由工业界单独进行，需要公众的支持。与此同时，斯坦福大学和GEGR的现有资金和正在进行的研究，以及GE医疗承诺的100万美元用于资助基于龙门架的系统的建设，都扩大了所要求预算的影响。我们相信，与现有系统相比，CT系统能够在更短的扫描时间内提供更大的体积覆盖范围，需要更低的辐射剂量，并提供不受影响的图像质量和时间分辨率，这将成为重要的研究和临床应用。目前使用的CT技术无法完成这项任务，因此需要一种新的方法。我们相信，我们的初步研究表明，我们的IGCT方法将能够开启CT扫描的新时代。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Computed Tomography (CT) has had an enormous impact on medicine since its introduction, and many physicians consider CT (along with MRI) to be the most important recent technological innovation in medicine. Further technical improvements would have important clinical benefit, but the system design in use in current CT systems, even the most advanced clinical scanners, is not able to achieve the combination of capabilities that is needed. We recently proposed a radically different CT system design, Inverse Geometry CT (IGCT) that promises to deliver wide volumetric coverage in a single rapid scan with no "cone-beam" artifacts, high spatial and temporal resolution, improved dose efficiency, and reduced radiation dose to the patient. Our preliminary results provide strong evidence that these goals can be achieved The goal of this proposal is to perform research leading to and including designing and constructing a fullscale prototype IGCT system capable of animal and human scanning, to quantitate its performance, and to perform pilot in-vivo studies. The research involves a collaboration between Stanford University and GE's Global Research (GEGR) Center, building on the pioneering work on IGCT performed at Stanford and the important advances and unique capabilities of the team at GEGR. The groups will collaboratively optimize the system design, perfect calibration and reconstruction algorithms, and perform detailed evaluations. The Stanford group, led by the PI, will be responsible for defining the clinical requirements and performing the animal and human studies. The GEGR group, led by Bruno De Man, will be responsible for detailed system design and construction. While the significance and potential impact of this research are very large, the scope and risk preclude it from being performed by industry alone and public support is required. At the same time, the impact of the requested budget is amplified by existing funding and ongoing research at both Stanford and GEGR, and by a commitment of 1$M from GE Healthcare to fund construction of the gantry based system. We believe that important research and clinical application would be possible with CT systems capable of much wider volumetric coverage in short scan times, requiring lower radiation dose than present systems, and delivering uncompromised image quality and temporal resolution. CT technology currently in use is not up to this task, and that a new approach is needed. We believe, and our preliminary studies show, that our IGCT approach will be able to open this new era in CT scanning.