An oblique projection modification technique (OPMT) for fast multispectral CT reconstruction

Abstract

In x-ray multispectral (or photon-counting) computed tomography (MCT), the object of interest is scanned under multiple x-ray spectra, and it can acquire more information about the scanned object than conventional CT, in which only one x-ray spectrum is used. The obtained polychromatic projections are utilized to perform material-selective and energy-selective image reconstruction. Compared with the conventional single spectral CT, MCT has a superior material distinguishability. Therefore, it has wide potential applications in both medical and industrial areas. However, the nonlinearity and ill condition of the MCT problem make it difficult to get high-quality and fast convergence of images for existing MCT reconstruction algorithms. In this paper, we proposed an iterative reconstruction algorithm based on an oblique projection modification technique (OPMT) for fast basis material decomposition of MCT. In the case of geometric inconsistency, along the current x-ray path, the oblique projection modification direction not only relates to the polychromatic projection equation of the known spectrum, but it also comprehensively refers to the polychromatic projection equation information of the unknown spectra. Moreover, the ray-by-ray correction makes it applicable to geometrically consistent projection data. One feature of the proposed algorithm is its fast convergence speed. The OPMT considers the information from multiple polychromatic projection equations, which greatly speeds up the convergence of MCT reconstructed images. Another feature of the proposed algorithm is its high flexibility. The ray-by-ray correction will be suitable for any common MCT scanning mode. The proposed algorithm is validated with numerical experiments from both simulated and real data. Compared with the ASD-NC-POCS and E-ART algorithms, the proposed algorithm achieved high-quality reconstructed images while accelerating the convergence speed of them.