Image-domain Material Decomposition for Spectral CT using a Generalized Dictionary Learning

Systematic Review on Learning-based Spectral CT

Spectral computed tomography (CT) has recently emerged as an advanced version of medical CT and significantly improves conventional (single-energy) CT. Spectral CT has two main forms: dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) and photon-counting computed tomography (PCCT), which offer image improvement, material decomposition, and feature quantification relative to conventional CT. However, the inherent challenges of spectral CT, evidenced by data and image artifacts, remain a bottleneck for clinical applications. To address these problems, machine learning techniques have been widely applied to spectral CT. In this review, we present the state-of-the-art data-driven techniques for spectral CT.

Systematic Review on Learning-based Spectral CT

Spectral computed tomography (CT) has recently emerged as an advanced version of medical CT and significantly improves conventional (single-energy) CT. Spectral CT has two main forms: dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) and photon-counting computed tomography (PCCT), which offer image improvement, material decomposition, and feature quantification relative to conventional CT. However, the inherent challenges of spectral CT, evidenced by data and image artifacts, remain a bottleneck for clinical applications. To address these problems, machine learning techniques have been widely applied to spectral CT. In this review, we present the state-of-the-art data-driven techniques for spectral CT.

A dual-energy CT reconstruction method based on anchor network from dual quarter scans

Compared with conventional single-energy computed tomography (CT), dual-energy CT (DECT) provides better material differentiation but most DECT imaging systems require dual full-angle projection data at different X-ray spectra. Relaxing the requirement of data acquisition is an attractive research to promote the applications of DECT in wide range areas and reduce the radiation dose as low as reasonably achievable. In this work, we design a novel DECT imaging scheme with dual quarter scans and propose an efficient method to reconstruct the desired DECT images from the dual limited-angle projection data. We first study the characteristics of limited-angle artifacts under dual quarter scans scheme, and find that the negative and positive artifacts of DECT images are complementarily distributed in image domain because the corresponding X-rays of high- and low-energy scans are symmetric. Inspired by this finding, a fusion CT image is generated by integrating the limited-angle DECT images of dual quarter scans. This strategy enhances the true image information and suppresses the limited-angle artifacts, thereby restoring the image edges and inner structures. Utilizing the capability of neural network in the modeling of nonlinear problem, a novel Anchor network with single-entry double-out architecture is designed in this work to yield the desired DECT images from the generated fusion CT image. Experimental results on the simulated and real data verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. This work enables DECT on imaging configurations with half-scan and largely reduces scanning angles and radiation doses.

Image-spectral decomposition extended-learning assisted by sparsity for multi-energy computed tomography reconstruction

Background

Multi-energy computed tomography (CT) provides multiple channel-wise reconstructed images, and they can be used for material identification and k-edge imaging. Nonetheless, the projection datasets are frequently corrupted by various noises (e.g., electronic, Poisson) in the acquisition process, resulting in lower signal-noise-ratio (SNR) measurements. Multi-energy CT images have local sparsity, nonlocal self-similarity in spatial dimension, and correlation in spectral dimension.

Methods

In this paper, we propose an image-spectral decomposition extended-learning assisted by sparsity (IDEAS) method to fully exploit these intrinsic priors for multi-energy CT image reconstruction. Particularly, a nonlocal low-rank Tucker decomposition (TD) is employed to utilize the correlation and nonlocal self-similarity priors. Moreover, considering the advantages of multi-task tensor dictionary learning (TDL) in sparse representation, an adaptive spatial dictionary and an adaptive spectral dictionary are trained during the iterative reconstruction process. Furthermore, a weighted total variation (TV) regularization term is employed to encourage local sparsity.

Results

Numerical simulation, physical phantom, and preclinical mouse experiments are performed to validate the proposed IDEAS algorithm. Specifically, in the simulation experiments, the proposed IDEAS reconstructed high-quality images that are very close to the references. For example, the root mean square error (RMSE) of IDEAS image in energy bin 1 is as low as 0.0672, while the RMSE of other methods are higher than 0.0843. Besides, the structural similarity (SSIM) of IDEAS reconstructed image in energy bin 1 is greater than 0.98. For material decomposition, the RMSE of IDEAS bone component is as low as 0.0152, and other methods are higher than 0.0199. In addition, the computational cost of IDEAS is as low as 98.8 s for one iteration, and the competing tensor decomposition method is higher than 327 s.

Conclusions

To further improve the quality of the reconstructed multi-energy CT images, multiple prior regularizations are introduced to the multi-energy CT reconstructed model, leading to an IDEAS method. Both qualitative and quantitative evaluation of our results confirm the outstanding performance of the proposed algorithm compared to the state-of-the-arts.

An improved iterative neural network for high-quality image-domain material decomposition in dual-energy CT

PURPOSE

Dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) has been widely used in many applications that need material decomposition. Image-domain methods directly decompose material images from high- and low-energy attenuation images, and thus, are susceptible to noise and artifacts on attenuation images. The purpose of this study is to develop an improved iterative neural network (INN) for high-quality image-domain material decomposition in DECT, and to study its properties.

METHODS

We propose a new INN architecture for DECT material decomposition. The proposed INN architecture uses distinct cross-material convolutional neural network (CNN) in image refining modules, and uses image decomposition physics in image reconstruction modules. The distinct cross-material CNN refiners incorporate distinct encoding-decoding filters and cross-material model that captures correlations between different materials. We study the distinct cross-material CNN refiner with patch-based reformulation and tight-frame condition.

RESULTS

Numerical experiments with extended cardiac-torso phantom and clinical data show that the proposed INN significantly improves the image quality over several image-domain material decomposition methods, including a conventional model-based image decomposition (MBID) method using an edge-preserving regularizer, a recent MBID method using pre-learned material-wise sparsifying transforms, and a noniterative deep CNN method. Our study with patch-based reformulations reveals that learned filters of distinct cross-material CNN refiners can approximately satisfy the tight-frame condition.

CONCLUSIONS

The proposed INN architecture achieves high-quality material decompositions using iteration-wise refiners that exploit cross-material properties between different material images with distinct encoding-decoding filters. Our tight-frame study implies that cross-material CNN refiners in the proposed INN architecture are useful for noise suppression and signal restoration. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Tensor Dictionary Learning with an Enhanced Sparsity Constraint for Sparse-View Spectral CT Reconstruction

Spectral computed tomography (CT) can divide collected photons into multi-energy channels and gain multi-channel projections synchronously by using photon-counting detectors. However, reconstructed images usually contain severe noise due to the limited number of photons in the corresponding energy channel. Tensor dictionary learning (TDL)-based methods have achieved better performance, but usually lose image edge information and details, especially from an under-sampling dataset. To address this problem, this paper proposes a method termed TDL with an enhanced sparsity constraint for spectral CT reconstruction. The proposed algorithm inherits the superiority of TDL by exploring the correlation of spectral CT images. Moreover, the method designs a regularization using the L0-norm of the image gradient to constrain images and the difference between images and a prior image in each energy channel simultaneously, further improving the ability to preserve edge information and subtle image details. The split-Bregman algorithm has been applied to address the proposed objective minimization model. Several numerical simulations and realistic preclinical mice are studied to assess the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The results demonstrate that the proposed method improves the quality of spectral CT images in terms of noise elimination, edge preservation, and image detail recovery compared to the several existing better methods.

Spectral Photon Counting CT: Imaging Algorithms and Performance Assessment

Photon counting x-ray detectors (PCDs) with spectral capabilities have the potential to revolutionize computed tomography (CT) for medical imaging. The ideal PCD provides accurate energy information for each incident x-ray, and at high spatial resolution. This information enables material-specific imaging, enhanced radiation dose efficiency, and improved spatial resolution in CT images. In practice, PCDs are affected by non-idealities, including limited energy resolution, pulse pileup, and cross talk due to charge sharing, K-fluorescence, and Compton scattering. In order to maximize their performance, PCDs must be carefully designed to reduce these effects and then later account for them during correction and post-acquisition steps. This review article examines algorithms for using PCDs in spectral CT applications, including how non-idealities impact image quality. Performance assessment metrics that account for spatial resolution and noise such as the detective quantum efficiency (DQE) can be used to compare different PCD designs, as well as compare PCDs with conventional energy integrating detectors (EIDs). These methods play an important role in enhancing spectral CT images and assessing the overall performance of PCDs.

Regularization by denoising sub-sampled Newton method for spectral CT multi-material decomposition

Spectral Computed Tomography (CT) is an emerging technology that enables us to estimate the concentration of basis materials within a scanned object by exploiting different photon energy spectra. In this work, we aim at efficiently solving a model-based maximum-a-posterior problem to reconstruct multi-materials images with application to spectral CT. In particular, we propose to solve a regularized optimization problem based on a plug-in image-denoising function using a randomized second order method. By approximating the Newton step using a sketching of the Hessian of the likelihood function, it is possible to reduce the complexity while retaining the complex prior structure given by the data-driven regularizer. We exploit a non-uniform block sub-sampling of the Hessian with inexact but efficient conjugate gradient updates that require only Jacobian-vector products for denoising term. Finally, we show numerical and experimental results for spectral CT materials decomposition. This article is part of the theme issue 'Synergistic tomographic image reconstruction: part 1'.

Tensor Gradient L₀-Norm Minimization-Based Low-Dose CT and Its Application to COVID-19

Methods to recover high-quality computed tomography (CT) images in low-dose cases will be of great benefit. To reach this goal, sparse-data subsampling is one of the common strategies to reduce radiation dose, which is attracting interest among the researchers in the CT community. Since analytic image reconstruction algorithms may lead to severe image artifacts, the iterative algorithms have been developed for reconstructing images from sparsely sampled projection data. In this study, we first develop a tensor gradient L₀-norm minimization (TGLM) for low-dose CT imaging. Then, the TGLM model is optimized by using the split-Bregman method. The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been sweeping the globe, and CT imaging has been deployed for detection and assessing the severity of the disease. Finally, we first apply our proposed TGLM method for COVID-19 to achieve low-dose scan by incorporating the 3-D spatial information. Two COVID-19 patients (64 years old female and 56 years old man) were scanned by the [Formula: see text]CT 528 system, and the acquired projections were retrieved to validate and evaluate the performance of the TGLM.