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

描述(申请人提供)：自1998年引入多层螺旋CT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行数和扫描仪转速的增加而逐渐增加的。然而，目前心脏CT成像的准确性强烈依赖于患者(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实现全心脏的高精度CT成像，独立于患者的情况，并具有与典型CT扫描相当的剂量。我们假设这一目标将使用一种新的扫描概念来实现，称为完全单次心跳全心(CSWH)扫描，即在一次心跳内获得涵盖整个心脏的断层扫描完整数据。对于首次使用CSWH扫描进行心脏成像的研究，我们将集中于以下目标：(1)开发和实施用于相关CSWH扫描的锥束数据的精确成像的重建算法；(2)比较评估CSWH扫描在不同准直策略下的数据需求和剂量；(3)使用计算机模拟数据和拟人模型的真实数据以及使用人类ROC观察者的研究，比较评估CSWH扫描的成像性能。

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.