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A general method for cupping artifact correction of cone-beam breast computed tomography images

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International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Cone-beam breast computed tomography (CBBCT), a promising breast cancer diagnostic technique, has been under investigation for the past decade. However, owing to scattered radiation and beam hardening, CT numbers are not uniform on CBBCT images. This is known as cupping artifact, and it presents an obstacle for threshold-based volume segmentation. In this study, we proposed a general post-reconstruction method for cupping artifact correction.

Methods

There were four steps in the proposed method. First, three types of local region histogram peaks were calculated: adipose peaks with low CT numbers, glandular peaks with high CT numbers, and unidentified peaks. Second, a linear discriminant analysis classifier, which was trained by identified adipose and glandular peaks, was employed to identify the unidentified peaks as adipose or glandular peaks. Third, adipose background signal profile was fitted according to the adipose peaks using the least squares method. Finally, the adipose background signal profile was subtracted from original image to obtain cupping corrected image

Results

In experimental study, standard deviation of adipose tissue CT numbers was obviously reduced and the CT numbers were more uniform after cupping correction by proposed method; in simulation study, root-mean-square errors were significantly reduced for both symmetric and asymmetric cupping artifacts, indicating that the proposed method was effective to both artifacts.

Conclusions

A general method without a circularly symmetric assumption was proposed to correct cupping artifacts in CBBCT images for breast. It may be properly applied to images of real patient breasts with natural pendent geometry.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partly supported by research grants (CA104759, CA135802, and CA124585) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute. Xiaolei Qu is grateful for financial support of Translational Systems Biology and Medicine Initiative from Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Xiaolei Qu

  2. Department of Imaging Physics, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Chao-Jen Lai, Yuncheng Zhong, Ying Yi & Chris C. Shaw

Authors
  1. Xiaolei Qu
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  2. Chao-Jen Lai
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  3. Yuncheng Zhong
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  4. Ying Yi
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  5. Chris C. Shaw
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chris C. Shaw.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical standards

This study was founded by research grants (CA104759, CA135802, and CA124585) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute. And the article is retrospective study, for this type of study formal consent is not required. Additionally, this article does not contain patient data.

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Qu, X., Lai, CJ., Zhong, Y. et al. A general method for cupping artifact correction of cone-beam breast computed tomography images. Int J CARS 11, 1233–1246 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-015-1317-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-015-1317-8

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