Experimental determination of section sensitivity profiles and image noise in electron beam computed tomography英文文献.pdfVIP

Experimental determination of section sensitivity profiles and image noise in electron beam computed tomographya Cynthia H. McCollough,b) Kalpana M. Kanal, Nicholas Lannutti, and Kelly J. Ryan Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Mayo Clinic and Mayo Foundation, Rochester, Minnesota 55905 Received 9 September 1998; accepted for publication 3 December 1998 To determine the effect of continuous-volume scanning CVS on z-axis resolution, section sensi- tivity profiles were measured on an electron beam computed tomography CT scanner and com- pared with those obtained using the step-volume scanning SVS mode. A steel bead was imaged using different scan parameters, and the mean CT number over the bead was plotted against the z-axis position to determine section sensitivity profiles. From these profiles, full width at half maximum FWHM, full width at tenth maximum FWTM, and full width at tenth area FWTA were calculated. A uniform water phantom was imaged to measure noise. To determine the visual significance of changes in the section sensitivity profile, a section thickness and contiguity phantom was imaged. All section sensitivity profiles measured had an FWHM value within 0.5 mm of the nominal scan width. The FWTM and FWTA values increased with the CVS mode compared with the SVS mode. This broadening of the section sensitivity profiles was most significant with larger collimator widths. However, use of smaller collimator widths increased image noise. When all other parameters remained constant, increasing the exposure time to reduce image noise did not affect the section sensitivity profile. The CVS mode produced wider section sensitivity profiles than the SVS mode. This effect was minimized when the smallest collimator width was used, but at the expense