High dose efficiency CT System

描述(申请人提供)：计算机断层扫描(CT)已成为诊断成像的支柱。CT的高度临床影响导致使用率迅速增加， 与此同时，公众对其对患者的潜在风险表示担忧。虽然已经开发了许多技术来减少CT的辐射剂量，但仍需要重大的额外改进来最大限度地减少辐射剂量而不影响诊断性能。在这个U01项目中，跨学科团队将针对CT成像链的三个关键部件开发剂量节约技术，并通过系统集成和评估展示其临床好处。具体地说，这三个组件包括(1)自适应地调制入射到患者身上的辐射的全动态X射线源；(2)具有小探测器间距、高计数率和五个能量窗的能量区分光子计数X射线探测器；以及(3)压缩传感和统计重建框架中的先进的低剂量光谱重建方法。拟议的震源、探测器和重建技术具有高度的协同性。这些技术将被集成到CT试验台系统中，以提供高剂量效率，从而允许对常见诊断程序进行亚mSv CT扫描，精细的空间分辨率几乎是最先进的商业CT扫描仪所提供的两倍，同样重要的是，光谱成像能力可以促进或实现材料表征和其他应用。所提出的CT试验台的性能将在数值模拟中进行深入的研究，并通过物理和体外实验进行验证。特征化的性能将为未来临床CT扫描仪的发展奠定基础。由于该项目开发的新技术与第三代扇束/多层CT系统几何结构兼容，制造商将相对容易地将其转化为广泛临床使用的产品。如果 U01项目的目标得以实现后，将为放射学社区带来巨大的好处：辐射剂量低于1 mSv的通用CT成像，这是30多年来CT空间分辨率的最大改进，以及强大的光谱CT成像能力和无数机会。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Computed tomography (CT) has become a mainstay in diagnostic imaging. The high clinical impact of CT has led to rapidly increased utilization and, at the same time, public concerns about the potential risk to patients. Although many technologies have been developed to reduce radiation dose from CT, significant additional improvements are needed to minimize radiation dose without compromising diagnostic performance. In this U01 project, the interdisciplinary team will develop dose-saving technologies for three key CT imaging chain components and demonstrate their clinical benefits by systematic integration and evaluation. Specifically, the three components comprise (1) a fully dynamic x-ray source that adaptively modulates the radiation incident on a patient; (2) an energy-discriminating photon-counting x-ray detector with small detector pitch, high count-rate, and five energy windows; and (3) an advanced low-dose spectral reconstruction methods in a compressive sensing and statistical reconstruction framework. The proposed source, detector and reconstruction technologies are highly synergistic. These technologies will be integrated into a CT test-bed system to provide high dose efficiency permitting sub-mSv CT scans for common diagnostic procedures, fine spatial resolution nearly doubling what is provided by the state-of-the-art commercial CT scanners, and equally important, spectral imaging capabilities to facilitate or enable material characterization and other applications. The performance of the proposed CT test-bed will be thoroughly investigated in numerical simulation, and validated with physical and ex vivo experiments. The characterized performance will set the stage for the development of future clinical CT scanners. Because the novel technologies developed in this project are compatible with 3rd generation fan-beam/multi-slice CT system geometries, it would be relatively easy for manufacturers to translate them into products for broad clinical use. If the aims of the U01 project are realized, the benefits to the radiological community will be dramatic: general-purpose CT imaging at radiation dose less than 1 mSv, the largest improvement in CT spatial resolution in over 30 years, and powerful spectral CT imaging capabilities with numerous opportunities.