Dynamic intensity-weighted region of interest imaging for conebeam CT

BACKGROUND

Patient dose from image guidance in radiotherapy is small compared to the treatment dose. However, the imaging beam is untargeted and deposits dose equally in tumor and healthy tissues. It is desirable to minimize imaging dose while maintaining efficacy.

OBJECTIVE

Image guidance typically does not require full image quality throughout the patient. Dynamic filtration of the kV beam allows local control of CT image noise for high quality around the target volume and lower quality elsewhere, with substantial dose sparing and reduced scatter fluence on the detector.

METHODS

The dynamic Intensity-Weighted Region of Interest (dIWROI) technique spatially varies beam intensity during acquisition with copper filter collimation. Fluence is reduced by 95% under the filters with the aperture conformed dynamically to the ROI during cone-beam CT scanning. Preprocessing to account for physical effects of the collimator before reconstruction is described.

RESULTS

Reconstructions show image quality comparable to a standard scan in the ROI, with higher noise and streak artifacts in the outer region but still adequate quality for patient localization. Monte Carlo modeling shows dose reduction by 10-15% in the ROI due to reduced scatter, and up to 75% outside.

CONCLUSIONS

The presented technique offers a method to reduce imaging dose by accepting increased image noise outside the ROI, while maintaining full image quality inside the ROI.