Improving low-dose abdominal CT images by Weighted Intensity Averaging over Large-scale Neighborhoods

被引:74
作者
Chen, Yang [2 ]
Chen, Wufan [1 ]
Yin, Xindao [3 ]
Ye, Xianghua [4 ]
Bao, Xudong [2 ]
Luo, Limin [2 ]
Feng, Qianjing [1 ]
Li, Yinsheng [1 ]
Yu, Xiaoe [1 ]
机构
[1] So Med Univ, Sch Biomed Engn, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Peoples R China
[2] Southeast Univ, Lab Image Sci & Technol, Nanjing, Peoples R China
[3] Nanjing Med Univ, Dept Radiol, Nanjing Hosp Affiliated 1, Nanjing, Peoples R China
[4] Zhejiang Univ, Dept Radiotherapy, Affiliated Hosp 1, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Peoples R China
关键词
Abdominal low-dose CT (LDCT); Abdominal standard-dose CT (SDCT); Weighted Intensity Averaging over; Large-scale Neighborhoods (WIA-LN); Artifacts; Contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR); COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY; NOISE-REDUCTION; NONLOCAL MEANS; ABDOMEN; IMPROVEMENT; ALGORITHM; QUALITY; FILTER;
D O I
10.1016/j.ejrad.2010.07.003
中图分类号
R8 [特种医学]; R445 [影像诊断学];
学科分类号
1002 ; 100207 ; 1009 ;
摘要
Purpose: Though highly desirable in radiologic procedures, low-dose CT (LDCT) images tend to be severely degraded by quantum noise and non-stationary artifacts. The purpose of this paper is to improve the abdominal LDCT images by the approach of Weighted Intensity Averaging over Large-scale Neighborhoods (WIA-LN). Materials and methods: In the implementation of the proposed WIA-LN method, the processed pixel intensities are adaptively calculated as the weighted intensity averaging of the pixels with similar surrounding structures throughout a large-scale neighborhood. Both phantom and clinical abdominal CT images from a 16 detector rows Siemens CT were acquired at standard and 80% reduced tube current time products (150 mA s and 30 mA s corresponding to standard-dose and low-dose protocols, respectively). Visual comparison, statistical qualitative analysis (image quality scores and hepatic cyst diagnosis), and quantitative calculation (noise and contrast-to-noise ratio) are made. Results: Better vision and quantitative performance are realized using the proposed WIA-LN method. Compared to original LDCT and standard-dose CT (SDCT) images, statistically significant improvement of noise/artifacts suppression, contrast preservation and hepatic cyst detection in LDCT images are achieved by using the proposed method (P < 0.05). Conclusion: With the tube current reduced to approximate one-fifth of the standard tube current setting, clinically acceptable images can still be obtained by using the proposed method. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:E42 / E49
页数:8
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