Static C-Arm CT 3D FDK baseline reconstructions (3D-DSA) are unable to provide temporal information to radiologists. 4D-DSA provides a time series of 3D volumes implementing a constrained image, thresholded 3D-DSA, reconstruction utilizing temporal dynamics in the 2D projections. Volumetric limiting spatial resolution (VLSR) of 4DDSA is quantified and compared to a 3D-DSA reconstruction using the same 3D-DSA parameters. Investigated were the effects of varying over significant ranges the 4D-DSA parameters of 2D blurring kernel size applied to the projection and threshold applied to the 3D-DSA when generating the constraining image of a scanned phantom (SPH) and an electronic phantom (EPH). The SPH consisted of a 76 micron tungsten wire encased in a 47 mm O.D. plastic radially concentric thin walled support structure. An 8-second/248-frame/198^° scan protocol acquired the raw projection data. VLSR was determined from averaged MTF curves generated from each 2D transverse slice of every (248) 4D temporal frame (3D). 4D results for SPH and EPH were compared to the 3D-DSA. Analysis of the 3D-DSA resulted in a VLSR of 2.28 and 1.69 lp/mm for the EPH and SPH respectively. Kernel (2D) sizes of either 10x10 or 20x20 pixels with a threshold of 10% of the 3D-DSA as a constraining image provided 4D-DSA VLSR nearest to the 3D-DSA. 4D-DSA algorithms yielded 2.21 and 1.67 lp/mm with a percent error of 3.1% and 1.2% for the EPH and SPH respectively as compared to the 3D-DSA. This research indicates 4D-DSA is capable of retaining the resolution of the 3D-DSA.

Date Published: 18 March 2015
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 9412, Medical Imaging 2015: Physics of Medical Imaging, 94121B (18 March 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2081624

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9412:
Medical Imaging 2015: Physics of Medical Imaging
Christoph Hoeschen; Despina Kontos, Editor(s)