Ultra-fast whole-heart CT using z-motion of the X-ray source

描述（申请人提供）：自1998年多层螺旋CT问世以来，x射线计算机断层扫描（CT）已成为心脏成像的重要工具。这种突出是随着探测器排数的增加和扫描仪旋转速度的增加而逐渐出现的。然而，心脏CT成像的准确性目前很大程度上依赖于患者（心律失常患者的风险更高，更难成像），而且这种准确性是以高剂量为代价的。这项研究的长期目标是使整个心脏的高度精确的CT成像独立于患者的病情，剂量与典型的CT扫描相当。我们假设这一目标将通过一种新的扫描概念来实现，称为完全单次心跳全心扫描（CSWH），其中在一次心跳内获得覆盖整个心脏的层析完整数据。这是第一次用CSWH扫描心脏成像的研究，我们将重点关注以下目的：(1)开发和实现从相关CSWH扫描的锥束数据中精确成像的重建算法；(2)使用各种准直策略对CSWH扫描在数据要求和剂量赋予方面的比较评估；(3)使用计算机模拟数据和真实数据进行CSWH扫描在成像性能方面的比较评估。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): X-ray computed tomography (CT) has become a prominent tool for cardiac imaging since the introduction of multislice CT in 1998. This prominence has come progressively with the increase in the number of detector rows and in the scanner rotation speed. However, the accuracy of cardiac CT imaging is currently strongly dependent on the patient (patients with heartbeat arrythmia, who are more at risk, are more difficult to image), and this accuracy furthermore comes at the cost of a high dose. The long-term goal of this research is to enable highly accurate CT imaging of the whole heart independently of the patient condition and with a dose comparable to typical CT scans. We hypothesize this goal will be reached using a new scanning concept, called complete single-beat whole-heart (CSWH) scanning, where tomographically-complete data covering the full heart is obtained within one heartbeat. For this first research on cardiac imaging with CSWH scans, we will focus on the following aims: (1) development and implementation of reconstruction algorithms for accurate imaging from cone-beam data on relevant CSWH scans, (2) comparative evaluation of CSWH scans in terms of data requirement and dose imparted using various collimation strategies, (3) comparative evaluation of CSWH scans in terms of imaging performance using computer simulated data and real data of anthropomorphic phantoms and using human ROC observer studies.