Optimizing Imaging Conditions in Digital Tomosynthesis for Image-Guided Radiation Therapy / 의학물리

Cone-beam digital tomosynthesis (CBDT) has greatly been paid attention in the image-guided radiation therapy because of its attractive advantages such as low patient dose and less motion artifact. Image quality of tomograms is, however, dependent on the imaging conditions such as the scan angle (beta(scan)) and the number of projection views. In this paper, we describe the principle of CBDT based on filtered-backprojection technique and investigate the optimization of imaging conditions. As a system performance, we have defined the figure-of-merit with a combination of signal difference-to-noise ratio, artifact spread function and floating-point operations which determine the computational load of image reconstruction procedures. From the measurements of disc phantom, which mimics an impulse signal and thus their analyses, it is concluded that the image quality of tomograms obtained from CBDT is improved as the scan angle is wider than 60 degrees with a larger step scan angle (Delta beta). As a rule of thumb, the system performance is dependent on . If the exact weighting factors could be assigned to each image-quality metric, we would find the better quantitative imaging conditions.

Geometric Calibration of Cone-beam CT System for Image Guided Proton Therapy / 의학물리

According to improved radiation therapy technology such as IMRT and proton therapy, the accuracy of patient alignment system is more emphasized and IGRT is dominated research field in radiation oncology. We proposed to study the feasibility of cone-beam CT system using simple x-ray imaging systems for image guided proton therapy at National Cancer Center. 180 projection views (2,304x3,200, 14 bit with 127 micrometer pixel pitch) for the geometrical calibration phantom and humanoid phantoms (skull, abdomen) were acquired with 2degrees step angle using x-ray imaging system of proton therapy gantry room (360degrees for 1 rotation). The geometrical calibration was performed for misalignments between the x-ray source and the flat-panel detector, such as distances and slanted angle using available algorithm. With the geometrically calibrated projection view, Feldkamp cone-beam algorithm using Ram-Lak filter was implemented for CBCT reconstruction images for skull and abdomen phantom. The distance from x-ray source to the gantry isocenter, the distance from the flat panel to the isocenter were calculated as 1,517.5 mm, 591.12 mm and the rotated angle of flat panel detector around x-ray beam axis was considered as 0.25degrees. It was observed that the blurring artifacts, originated from the rotation of the detector, in the reconstructed toomographs were significantly reduced after the geometrical calibration. The demonstrated CBCT images for the skull and abdomen phantoms are very promising. We performed the geometrical calibration of the large gantry rotation system with simple x-ray imaging devices for CBCT reconstruction. The CBCT system for proton therapy will be used as a main patient alignment system for image guided proton therapy.