Cardiac gating with a pulse oximeter for dual-energy imaging

A real-time, single-exposure, dual-energy subtraction mask for markerless tumor tracking in radiotherapy: Proof of concept

INTRODUCTION

Bone density can interfere with fluoroscopy-guided tumor tracking in radiotherapy. To improve markerless tumor tracking accuracy, we developed a dual energy subtraction (DES) mechanical image mask to use with a single x-ray exposure.

METHODS

The DES mask consists of 2-mm-thick stainless-steel with 128 pairs of slits (0.388 mm width and openings), designed to match the dynamic flat panel detector (DFPD) pixel size. This was set on the front of the DFPD. This results in a DFPD image with one containing the exposed pixels and one containing the masked pixels. The masked pixel columns were interpolated from adjacent pixels and a subtraction image was generated from the interpolated images to make a bone suppression (BS) image. A chest phantom was set on the commercially available moving table (CIRS DYNAMIC PLATFORM 008PL) and DFPD images were acquired. A reference BS image was generated by double-exposure DES with and without a 2-mm-thick stainless-steel plate. Image quality and markerless tumor tracking accuracy were then evaluated.

RESULTS

The DES mask decreased most of the visible bone densities from the chest phantom image acquired with a single exposure for a peak-signal-to-noise-ratio/structural similarity index measure (PSNR/SSIM) of 25.3 db/0.685). The tracking positional error, originally 12.6 mm, was improved to 0.2 mm.

CONCLUSIONS

The DES mask can aid in BS image on fluoroscopic imaging and may be useful in markerless tumor tracking.

Evaluation of a commercial cardiac motion phantom for dual-energy chest radiography

Misregistration due to cardiac motion causes artifacts in two-exposure dual-energy subtraction images, in both the soft-tissue-only image and the bone-only image. Two previous investigations have attempted to avoid misregistration artifacts by using cardiac gating of the first and second exposures. The severity of misregistration was affected by the heart rate, the time interval between the low- and high-energy exposures, the total duration of the two exposures, and the phase of the cardiac cycle at the start of the exposure sequence. We sought to determine whether a commercial phantom with a simulated beating heart can be used to investigate the factors affecting misregistration in dual-energy chest radiography. We made dual-energy images of the phantom in postero-anterior orientation using the indirect digital radiography system (GE XQ/i). We acquired digital images at heart rates between 40 beats per minute and 120 beats per minute and transferred them to a computer, where the area of the artifact on the silhouette of the heart was measured from both soft-tissue-only and bone-only images. For comparison, we measured misregistration in clinical dual-energy subtraction images by the same method. Generally speaking, without synchronization of the exposure sequence with the cardiac cycle, the area of the misregistration artifact increased with heart rate for both the phantom and clinical images. However, the phantom exaggerated the magnitude of misregistration relative to clinical images. Although this phantom was designed for horizontal operation and computed tomography imaging, it can be used in an upright configuration to simulate heart motion for investigation of dual-energy misregistration artifacts and control.

Dual energy imaging using a clinical on-board imaging system

Dual energy (DE) imaging consists of obtaining kilovoltage (kV) x-ray images at two different diagnostic energies and performing a weighted subtraction of these images. A third image is then produced that highlights soft tissue. DE imaging has been used by radiologists to aid in the detection of lung malignancies. However, it has not been used clinically in radiotherapy. The goal of this study is to assess the feasibility of performing DE imaging using a commercial on-board imaging system. Both a simple and an anthropomorphic phantom were constructed for this analysis. Planar kV images of the phantoms were obtained using varied imaging energies and mAs. Software was written to perform DE subtraction using empirically determined weighting factors. Tumor detectability was assessed quantitatively using the signal-difference-to-noise ratio (SDNR). Overall DE subtraction suppressed high density objects in both phantoms. The optimal imaging technique, providing the largest SDNR with a dose less than our reference technique was 140 kVp, 1.0 mAs and 60 kVp, 3.2 mAs. Based on this analysis, DE subtraction imaging is feasible using a commercial on-board imaging system and may improve the visualization of tumors in lung cancer patients undergoing image-guided radiotherapy.

Real-time cardiac synchronization with fixed volume frame rate for reducing physiological instabilities in 3D FMRI

Although 2D echo-planar imaging (EPI) remains the dominant method for functional MRI (FMRI), 3D readouts are receiving more interest as these sequences have favorable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and enable imaging at a high isotropic resolution. Spoiled gradient-echo (SPGR) and balanced steady-state free-precession (bSSFP) are rapid sequences that are typically acquired with highly segmented 3D readouts, and thus less sensitive to image distortion and signal dropout. They therefore provide a powerful alternative for FMRI in areas with strong susceptibility offsets, such as deep gray matter structures and the brainstem. Unfortunately, the multi-shot nature of the readout makes these sequences highly sensitive to physiological fluctuations, and large signal instabilities are observed in the inferior regions of the brain. In this work a characterization of the source of these instabilities is given and a new method is presented to reduce the instabilities observed in 3D SPGR and bSSFP. Rapidly acquired single-slice data, which critically sampled the respiratory and cardiac waveforms, showed that cardiac pulsation is the dominant source of the instabilities. Simulations further showed that synchronizing the readout to the cardiac cycle minimizes the instabilities considerably. A real-time synchronization method was therefore developed, which utilizes parallel-imaging techniques to allow cardiac synchronization without alteration of the volume acquisition rate. The implemented method significantly improves the temporal stability in areas that are affected by cardiac-related signal fluctuations. In bSSFP data the tSNR in the brainstem increased by 45%, at the cost of a small reduction in tSNR in the cortical areas. In SPGR the temporal stability is improved by approximately 20% in the subcortical structures and as well as cortical gray matter when synchronization was performed.

Diagnostic performance of a prototype dual-energy chest imaging system ROC analysis

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES

To assess the performance of an experimental prototype dual-energy (DE) chest imaging system in comparison to digital radiography (DR) in detection and characterization of lung lesions using receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) tests.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A cohort of 129 patients (80 M, 49 F; mean age, 64.8 years) was drawn from a trial of patients referred for percutaneous biopsy of a lung lesion. DR and DE images were acquired of each patient (posteroanterior view) before biopsy using a prototype system developed in our laboratory. The system incorporated a flat-panel detector and previously reported imaging techniques optimized such that the total dose for the DE image was equivalent to that of a DR acquisition. Each DE image was decomposed to three components (soft-tissue, bone, and composite "equivalent radiograph") by log subtraction with optimized noise reduction techniques. ROC tests were performed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of DR imaging in comparison to DE for nodule detection, with 258 left/right "half-chest" images derived from the 129 cases to give a roughly equal number of disease and normal cases. Five chest radiologists scored 258 half-chest DE and 258 half-chest DR (516 in total) images on a 5-point scale, and results (including ROC and area under the curve [AUC]) were analyzed using the ROCkit toolkit. Statistical significance in the observed differences was evaluated in terms of P values determined by a z test. Performance was analyzed for all cases pooled (258 DE vs. 258 DR images) and by retrospective stratification of the data according to nodule size, density, gender, lung region, and chest thickness.

RESULTS

For results pooled over the entire cohort, there was no significant difference in ROC performance between DE and DR (AUC(DE) = 0.795 AUC(DR) = 0.789; P = .696). This finding is believed to be due to a large portion of lesions that were fairly conspicuous in either modality. In retrospective analysis of subgroups, a significant advantage was measured for DE imaging of small nodules (<1 cm diameter; AUC(DE) = 0.778; AUC(DR) = 0.706; P = .056), for nodules located in the right upper lobe (AUC(DE) = 0.836; AUC(DR) = 0.779; P = .003), and nodules located in right lower lobe (AUC(DE) = 0.804; AUC(DR) = 0.752; P = .054). DE imaging provided a clinically significant differential diagnosis in approximately one third of patients (49/158) (ie, disease cases in which the lesion was correctly identified in DE [(ROC rating > or =3], but missed in DR [ROC rating < or =2]). DE imaging also appeared to provide more definitive diagnosis (ie, a greater proportion of ROC ratings = 5 and 1 for identification of disease and normal cases, respectively), which presumably translates to increased confidence and a steeper ROC curve (even if the AUC are the same).

CONCLUSIONS

DE imaging at dose equivalent to DR exhibited similar overall ROC performance to DR, although the radiologists noted qualitatively improved visualization (eg, improved characterization of lesion margins, visibility of calcifications and rib fractures). DE imaging demonstrated significant improvement in diagnostic performance for specific subgroups, including subcentimeter lung lesions and lesions in the right upper lobe, each of which is a potentially important factor in detecting early-stage malignancy.

Multiscale deformable registration for dual-energy x-ray imaging

Dual-energy (DE) imaging of the chest improves the conspicuity of subtle lung nodules through the removal of overlying anatomical noise. Recent work has shown double-shot DE imaging (i.e., successive acquisition of low- and high-energy projections) to provide detective quantum efficiency, spectral separation (and therefore contrast), and radiation dose superior to single-shot DE imaging configurations (e.g., with a CR cassette). However, the temporal separation between high-energy (HE) and low-energy (LE) image acquisition can result in motion artifacts in the DE images, reducing image quality and diminishing diagnostic performance. This has motivated the development of a deformable registration technique that aligns the HE image onto the LE image before DE decomposition. The algorithm reported here operates in multiple passes at progressively smaller scales and increasing resolution. The first pass addresses large-scale motion by means of mutual information optimization, while successive passes (2-4) correct misregistration at finer scales by means of normalized cross correlation. Evaluation of registration performance in 129 patients imaged using an experimental DE imaging prototype demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in image alignment. Specific to the cardiac region, the registration algorithm was found to outperform a simple cardiac-gating system designed to trigger both HE and LE exposures during diastole. Modulation transfer function (MTF) analysis reveals additional advantages in DE image quality in terms of noise reduction and edge enhancement. This algorithm could offer an important tool in enhancing DE image quality and potentially improving diagnostic performance.