Metal artifact reduction techniques for single energy CT and dual-energy CT with various metal materials

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the current study is to evaluate the effectiveness of reduction metal artifacts using kV-CT image with the single-energy based metal artefact reduction (SEMAR) technique by single-energy reconstruction, monochromatic CT and rED reconstructed by dual-energy reconstruction. Methods: Seven different metal materials (brass, aluminum, copper, stainless, steel, lead and titanium) were placed inside the water-based PMMA phantom. After DECT-based scan, the artefact index (AI) were evaluated with the kV-CT images with and without SEMAR by single-energy reconstruction, and raw-data based electron density (rED), monochromatic CT images by dual-energy reconstruction. Moreover, the AI with evaluated with rED and the converted ED images from the kV-CT and monochromatic CT images. Results: The minimum average value of the AI with all-metal inserts was approximately 80 keV. The AI without SEMAR was larger than that with SEMAR for the 80 kV and 135 kV CT images. In the comparison of the AI for the rED and ED images that were converted from 80 kV and 135 kV CT images with and without SEMAR, the monochromatic CT images of the PMMA phantom with inserted metal materials at 80 keV revealed that the kV-CT with SEMAR reduced the metal artefact substantially. Conclusion: The converted ED from the kV-CT and monochromatic CT images could be useful for a comparison of the AI using the same contrast scale. The kV-CT image with SEMAR by single-energy reconstruction was found to substantially reduce metal artefact. Advances in knowledge: The effectiveness of reduction of metal artifacts using single-energy based metal artefact reduction (SEMAR) technique and dual-energy CT (DECT) was evaluated the electron density conversion techniques.

Artificial Intelligence in Emergency Radiology: Where Are We Going?

“…AI tools can also improve artifact reduction algorithms, by replacing the artifact with an approximation inferred by the adjacent zones [ 31 ].…”

Influence of field of view size and reconstruction methods on single-energy metal artifact reduction: a phantom study

“…AI is de ned not by the ratio of SDs in the metal artifact image and the background image, but by the difference between those of SDs [7][8][9][10]13]. Therefore, CT images with high image noise increase the difference between the SDs of the metal artifact image and the SDs of the background image.…”

“…The cause of metal artifacts are beamhardening, extensive photon starvation, and scatter [2]. Various methods are used to reduce metal artifacts, including alteration of image reconstruction method [3], scanning with a dual-energy CT [4,5], and using metal artifact reduction software [1,3,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”

“…On the other hand, it has been reported that SEMAR has a different metal artifact reduction effect depending on the shape of the metal [6], image reconstruction methods [9], and the scan parameters [3,7,10]. Andersson et al [5] have indicated that the creation of new artifacts are particularly obvious when the SEMAR algorithm is combined with iterative reconstruction (IR).…”

Combining dual-tree complex wavelets and multiresolution in iterative CT reconstruction with application to metal artifact reduction

“…The latest comparison of the available MAR algorithms from the largest vendors have also been tested with a customized phantom by Chou et al [7]. For the effectiveness of MAR with various metals in CT, readers can refer to [8].…”