Lu Yao, Chan Heang-Ping, Wei Jun, Hadjiiski Lubomir M, Samala Ravi K
Phys Med Biol. 2017 Sep 15;62(19):7765-7783. doi: 10.1088/1361-6560/aa8803.
In digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT), the high-attenuation metallic clips marking a previous biopsy site in the breast cause errors in the estimation of attenuation along the ray paths intersecting the markers during reconstruction, which result in interplane and inplane artifacts obscuring the visibility of subtle lesions. We proposed a new metal artifact reduction (MAR) method to improve image quality. Our method uses automatic detection and segmentation to generate a marker location map for each projection (PV). A voting technique based on the geometric correlation among different PVs is designed to reduce false positives (FPs) and to label the pixels on the PVs and the voxels in the imaged volume that represent the location and shape of the markers. An iterative diffusion method replaces the labeled pixels on the PVs with estimated tissue intensity from the neighboring regions while preserving the original pixel values in the neighboring regions. The inpainted PVs are then used for DBT reconstruction. The markers are repainted on the reconstructed DBT slices for radiologists' information. The MAR method is independent of reconstruction techniques or acquisition geometry. For the training set, the method achieved 100% success rate with one FP in 19 views. For the test set, the success rate by view was 97.2% for core biopsy microclips and 66.7% for clusters of large post-lumpectomy markers with a total of 10 FPs in 58 views. All FPs were large dense benign calcifications that also generated artifacts if they were not corrected by MAR. For the views with successful detection, the metal artifacts were reduced to a level that was not visually apparent in the reconstructed slices. The visibility of breast lesions obscured by the reconstruction artifacts from the metallic markers was restored.
在数字乳腺断层合成(DBT)中,标记乳腺先前活检部位的高衰减金属夹会在重建过程中导致沿与标记相交的射线路径的衰减估计出现误差,从而产生层间和层内伪影,模糊细微病变的可见性。我们提出了一种新的金属伪影减少(MAR)方法来提高图像质量。我们的方法使用自动检测和分割为每个投影(PV)生成标记位置图。设计了一种基于不同PV之间几何相关性的投票技术,以减少误报(FP),并标记PV上的像素以及成像体积中代表标记位置和形状的体素。一种迭代扩散方法用来自相邻区域的估计组织强度替换PV上标记的像素,同时保留相邻区域中的原始像素值。然后将修复后的PV用于DBT重建。标记会重新绘制在重建的DBT切片上,以供放射科医生参考。MAR方法独立于重建技术或采集几何结构。对于训练集,该方法在19个视图中实现了100%的成功率,仅有1个FP。对于测试集,对于核心活检微夹,按视图计算的成功率为97.2%,对于乳房肿瘤切除术后大标记簇,成功率为66.7%,在58个视图中共有10个FP。所有FP均为大的致密良性钙化,如果不通过MAR进行校正,也会产生伪影。对于成功检测的视图,金属伪影减少到在重建切片中肉眼不可见的程度。被金属标记的重建伪影遮挡的乳腺病变的可见性得以恢复。