Patent ID: 8280135
Filing Date: 2012-10-02
Classification: A61B,G06T

Abstract:
1. A method for producing, with an x-ray computed tomography (“CT”) system, an image of a subject in which artifacts associated with a highly attenuating material are substantially suppressed, the steps of the method comprising: a) acquiring, with the CT system and using a helical-scan with a selected pitch factor, projection data that includes a plurality of projection views of a subject at a plurality of view angles over a selected longitudinal scan range; b) producing, from the acquired projection data, a projection plane data set by combining a plurality of projection views from the projection data that were acquired at the same view angle; c) producing a reformatted projection by mapping attenuation information in the projection plane data set to an image matrix; d) correcting the reformatted projection for errors resulting from the selected pitch factor; e) segmenting a region of the corrected reformatted projection that corresponds to an object composed of a highly attenuating material; f) removing attenuation information in the segmented region from the corrected reformatted projection; g) interpolating attenuation information from portions of the corrected reformatted projection into the segmented region to produce an interpolated reformatted projection; and h) producing an image of the subject, in which artifacts caused by highly attenuating materials are substantially suppressed, by mapping the interpolated reformatted projection to a corrected projection plane data set and performing image reconstruction on the projection plane data set.