High dose efficiency CT System

描述（由申请人提供）：计算机断层扫描（CT）已成为诊断成像的支柱。CT的高临床影响导致了快速增加的利用率， 与此同时，公众对病人的潜在风险表示关注。尽管已经开发了许多技术来减少CT的辐射剂量，但还需要进行显著的额外改进，以在不影响诊断性能的情况下最大限度地减少辐射剂量。在这个U 01项目中，跨学科团队将为三个关键的CT成像链组件开发剂量节省技术，并通过系统集成和评估来展示其临床益处。具体而言，这三个组件包括：（1）全动态X射线源，其自适应地调制入射到患者上的辐射;（2）具有小探测器间距、高计数率和五个能量窗口的能量鉴别光子计数X射线探测器;以及（3）压缩感测和统计重建框架中的高级低剂量谱重建方法。所提出的源、检测器和重建技术是高度协同的。这些技术将被集成到CT试验台系统中，以提供高剂量效率，允许用于常见诊断程序的亚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，以及同样重要的光谱成像能力，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研究，并通过物理和离体实验进行验证。其特性将为未来临床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，因此制造商将其转化为广泛临床使用的产品相对容易。如果 如果U 01项目的目标得以实现，放射学界将获得巨大的利益：辐射剂量低于1 mSv的通用CT成像，30多年来CT空间分辨率的最大改进，以及具有众多机会的强大光谱CT成像能力。

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.