We are implementing an X-ray breast Computed Tomography (CT) system on the gantry of a dedicated single photon emission tomography system for breast Tc-99 imaging. For the breast CT system we investigated the relevance of the beam hardening artifact. We studied the use of a single photon counting silicon pixel detector (0.3 mm thick, 256×256 pixel, 55μm pitch, bump-bonded to the Medipix2 photon counting readout chip) as detector unit in our X-ray CT system. We evaluated the beam hardening “cupping” artifact using homogeneous PMMA slabs and phantoms up to 14 cm in diameter, used as uncompressed breast tissue phantoms, imaged with a tungsten anode tube at 80 kVp with 4.2 mm Al filtration. For beam hardening evaluation we used a bimodal energy model. The CT data show a “cupping” artifact going from 4% (4-cm thick material) to 18% (14-cm thick material). This huge artifacts is influenced by the low detection efficiency and the charge sharing effect of the silicon pixel detector.
M.G. Bisogni, A. Del Guerra, N. Lanconelli, A. Lauria, G. Mettivier, M.C. Montesi, et al. (2007). Experimental study of beam hardening artifacts in photon counting breast computed tomography. NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS & METHODS IN PHYSICS RESEARCH. SECTION A, ACCELERATORS, SPECTROMETERS, DETECTORS AND ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT, 581, 94-98 [10.1016/j.nima.2007.07.036].
Experimental study of beam hardening artifacts in photon counting breast computed tomography
LANCONELLI, NICO;
2007
Abstract
We are implementing an X-ray breast Computed Tomography (CT) system on the gantry of a dedicated single photon emission tomography system for breast Tc-99 imaging. For the breast CT system we investigated the relevance of the beam hardening artifact. We studied the use of a single photon counting silicon pixel detector (0.3 mm thick, 256×256 pixel, 55μm pitch, bump-bonded to the Medipix2 photon counting readout chip) as detector unit in our X-ray CT system. We evaluated the beam hardening “cupping” artifact using homogeneous PMMA slabs and phantoms up to 14 cm in diameter, used as uncompressed breast tissue phantoms, imaged with a tungsten anode tube at 80 kVp with 4.2 mm Al filtration. For beam hardening evaluation we used a bimodal energy model. The CT data show a “cupping” artifact going from 4% (4-cm thick material) to 18% (14-cm thick material). This huge artifacts is influenced by the low detection efficiency and the charge sharing effect of the silicon pixel detector.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
