Hsieh Jiang, Londt John, Vass Melissa, Li Jay, Tang Xiangyang, Okerlund Darin
GE Healthcare Technologies, Waukesha, Wisconsin 53188, USA.
Med Phys. 2006 Nov;33(11):4236-48. doi: 10.1118/1.2361078.
Coronary artery imaging with x-ray computed tomography (CT) is one of the most recent advancements in CT clinical applications. Although existing "state-of-the-art" clinical protocols today utilize helical data acquisition, it suffers from the lack of ability to handle irregular heart rate and relatively high x-ray dose to patients. In this paper, we propose a step-and-shoot data acquisition protocol that significantly overcomes these shortcomings. The key to the proposed protocol is the large volume coverage (40 mm) enabled by the cone beam CT scanner, which allows the coverage of the entire heart in 3 to 4 steps. In addition, we propose a gated complementary reconstruction algorithm that overcomes the longitudinal truncation problem resulting from the cone beam geometry. Computer simulations, phantom experiments, and clinical studies were conducted to validate our approach.
利用X射线计算机断层扫描（CT）进行冠状动脉成像，是CT临床应用中最新进展之一。尽管如今现有的“先进”临床方案采用螺旋数据采集方式，但它存在无法处理不规则心率以及对患者的X射线剂量相对较高的问题。在本文中，我们提出了一种步进式数据采集方案，该方案显著克服了这些缺点。所提出方案的关键在于锥束CT扫描仪实现的大容积覆盖（40毫米），这使得能在3至4步内覆盖整个心脏。此外，我们还提出了一种门控互补重建算法，该算法克服了由锥束几何结构导致的纵向截断问题。我们进行了计算机模拟、体模实验和临床研究以验证我们的方法。
