Iterative Reconstruction for Quantitative Material Decomposition in Dual-Energy CT

Abstract: It is of clinical interest to decompose a three material mixture into its constituted substances using dual-energy CT. In radiation therapy, for example material decomposition can be used to determine tissue properties for the calculation of dose in treatment planning. Due to use of polychromatic spectrum in CT, beam hardening artifacts prevent to achieve fully satisfactory results. Here an iterative reconstruction algorithm proposed by A. Malusek, M. Magnusson, M.Sandborg, and G. Alm Carlsson in 2008 is implemented to achieve this goal. The iterative algorithm can be implemented with both single- and dual-energy CT. The material decomposition process is based on mass conservation and volume conservation assumptions. The implementation and evaluation of iterative reconstruction algorithm is done by using simulation studies of analyzing mixtures of water, protein and adipose tissue. The results demonstrated that beam hardening artifacts are effectively removed and accurate estimation of mass fractions of each base material can be achieved with the proposed method. We also compared our novel iterative reconstruction algorithm to the commonly used water pre-correction method. Experimental results show that our novel iterative algorithm is more accurate.