Edward Lipson

Soft tissue small avascular tumor imaging with x-ray phase-contrast micro-CT in-line holography

To assess the feasibility of small soft tissue avascular tumor micro-CT imaging with x-ray phase-contrast in-line holography, we have studied micro-CT imaging with in-line geometry of small spheroidal avascular tumor models with quiescent cell core (< 250 μm) and various distributions of the proliferating cell density (PCD) forming the outer shell. We have simulated imaging with an ultrafast laser-based x-ray source with a Mo target. We observe phase-contrast enhancement of the tumor boundaries in the reconstructed transaxial images, resulting in improved detection of small soft tissue tumors, providing that the PCD density gradient is sufficiently large.

Deformable model for 3D intramodal nonrigid breast image registration with fiducial skin markers

We implemented a new approach to intramodal non-rigid 3D breast image registration. Our method uses fiducial skin markers (FSM) placed on the breast surface. After determining the displacements of FSM, finite element method (FEM) is used to distribute the markers’ displacements linearly over the entire breast volume using the analogy between the orthogonal components of the displacement field and a steady state heat transfer (SSHT). It is valid because the displacement field in x, y and z direction and a SSHT problem can both be modeled using LaPlace’s equation and the displacements are analogous to temperature differences in SSHT. It can be solved via standard heat conduction FEM software with arbitrary conductivity of surface elements significantly higher than that of volume elements. After determining the displacements of the mesh nodes over the entire breast volume, moving breast volume is registered to target breast volume using an image warping algorithm. Very good quality of the registration was obtained. Following similarity measurements were estimated: Normalized Mutual Information (NMI), Normalized Correlation Coefficient (NCC) and Sum of Absolute Valued Differences (SAVD). We also compared our method with rigid registration technique.

Motion correction via nonrigid coregistration of dynamic MR mammography series

The objectives of this investigation are to improve quality of subtraction MR breast images and improve accuracy of time-signal intensity curves (TSIC) related to local contrast-agent concentration in dynamic MR mammography. The patients, with up to nine fiducial skin markers (FSMs) taped to each breast, were prone with both breasts suspended into a single well that housed the receiver coil. After a preliminary scan, paramagnetic contrast agent gadopentate digmeglumine (Gd) was delivered intravenously, followed by physiological saline. The field of view was centered over the breasts. We used a gradient recalled echo (GRE) technique for pre-Gd baseline, and five more measurements at 60s intervals. Centroids were determined for corresponding FSMs visible on pre-Gd and any post-Gd images. This was followed by segmentation of breast surfaces in all dynamic-series images, and meshing of all post-Gd breast images. Tetrahedral volume and triangular surface elements were used to construct a finite element method (FEM) model. We used ANSYSTM software and an analogy between orthogonal components of the displacement field and the temperature differences in steady-state heat transfer (SSHT) in solids. The floating images were warped to a fixed image using an appropriate shape function for interpolation from mesh nodes to voxels. To reduce any residual misregistration, we performed surface matching between the previously warped floating image and the target image. Our method of motion correction via nonrigid coregistration yielded excellent differential-image series that clearly revealed lesions not visible in unregistered differential-image series. Further, it produced clinically useful maximum intensity projection (MIP) 3D images.

A practical correction of scatter-related artifacts in SPECT reconstruction

We have observed that an expectation maximization (EM) algorithm applied to SPECT reconstruction may produce hotspot artifacts of varying intensity. Our hypothesis was that scatter caused these artifacts. To test this assumption, we studied the performance of forward- and back-projection procedures in the EM algorithm for simulated and experimental SPECT data. First, synthetic scatter-free projections and projections with only one scattered photon in each view were created for a simulated simple object, and reconstructed with a fully 3D ordered-subsets EM (OSEM) algorithm. Then, Monte Carlo simulated brain SPECT (with no scatter and with scatter present), a mini-Defrise phantom, and patient SPECT were reconstructed. We confirmed our hypothesis: hot-spot artifacts appeared only in the reconstruction from noisy projections but not in the reconstruction from scatter-free projections. We investigated a practical and simple method, critical path-length control (CPLC), for suppression of the hot-spot artifacts. To this end we performed reconstructions with or without CPLC and quantitatively evaluated the results including estimation of accuracy, bias, contrast-to-noise ratio, and uniformity. We found that the OSEM-with-CPLC method significantly reduced hot-spot artifacts, and yielded a similar or improved image quality. We conclude that the CPLC method provides a useful yet simple tool to reduce scatter-related hot-spot artifacts.

Experimental studies of SPECT scintimammography with combined cone-beam and parallel-beam collimators

Conventional SPECT Tc-99m sestamibi scintimammography (STSM) has limited clinical utility due to fairly low radiopharmaceutical uptake in the breast tissue as compared to the heart and the liver. We investigated the use of a cone-beam collimator (CBC) to STSM. Each detector on a multi-headed gamma camera can be equipped with parallel-beam (PBC) or cone-beam collimators (CBC). PBC can provide truncation-free SPECT projection sets, while CBC offers increased sensitivity in a limited field-of-view (FOV). Combined PBC and CBC SPECT ddata acquisition may provide improved lesion contrast and overall better imaging performance within CBC FOV with significantly reduced truncation artifacts in the reconstructed images. In this paper we evaluate the combined CBC&PBC SPECT method using a limited number of confirmed breast cancer patients and female chest phantoms with simulated breast lesions. We envision the combined CBC&PBC SPECT as a useful clinical tool in scintimammography.