Iterative Reconstruction Algorithm for Phase-Contrast X-Ray Imaging

Abstract: Phase-contrast imaging (PCI) is a modality of medical x-ray imaging that can solve one of the main limitations with conventional attenuation-based imaging: the imaging of materials with low attenuation coefficients, such as soft tissues. A modality of PCI, Propagation-based phase-contrast imaging (PBI), was used in this project. This method does not require any optical elements than those used in the conventional imaging; it does, however, require more processing compared to other kinds of PCI. In addition to the reduced image quality, the required image reconstruction process, with PCI, also requires several manual adjustments, which in turn results in a lot of time consuming. In order to achieve that, a simple iterative image reconstruction method that combines Simultaneous Iterative Reconstruction Technique (SIRT) and propagation-based phase-contrast imaging was developed. The proposed method was compared with another commonly used phase-retrieval method, Paganin's algorithm. The obtained results showed higher resolution and reduced blur artefacts compared with Paganin's method. The developed method also appeared to be less sensitive to error in the input parameters, such as the attenuation coefficient, but also more time-consumption than the non-iterative Paganin's method, due to the higher data processing.