Apparatus and method for context-oriented iterative reconstruction for computed tomography (CT)

US10685461B1 · kind B1 · utility

Assignees

• CANON MEDICAL SYSTEMS CORPORATION · JP
• UNIVERSITY HEALTH NETWORK · CA

Inventors

• Chung Chan · Vernon Hills, US
• Zhou Yu · Beijing, CN
• Jian Zhou · Davis, US
• Patrik Rogalla · Berlin, DE
• Bernice Hoppel · Delafield, US
• Kurt Walter Schultz · North Providence, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Dec 20, 2018
• Grant date: Jun 16, 2020
• Expiry date: Dec 20, 2038

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06V2201/03
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A method and apparatus is provided to iteratively reconstruct a computed tomography (CT) image using a spatially-varying content-oriented regularization parameter, thereby achieving uniform statistical properties within respective organs/regions and different statistical properties (e.g., degree of smoothing and noise level) among the respective organs/regions. For example, less smoothing and sharper features/resolution can be applied within a lung region than within a soft-tissue region by using a smaller regularization parameter value in the lung region than in the soft-tissue region. This can be achieved, e.g., using a minimum intensity projection to suppress/eliminate sub-solid nodules in the lung region. The content-oriented regularization parameter can be generated by reconstructing an initial CT image, which is then segmented/classified according to organs and/or tissue type. Segmenting the image and generating the content-oriented regularization parameter can be integrated into one process by applying an HU-to-β mapping to the CT image.