Low-dose cone-beam CT via raw counts domain low-signal correction schemes: Performance assessment and task-based parameter optimization (Part I: Assessment of spatial resolution and noise performance)

Purpose Low-signal correction (LSC) in the raw counts domain has been shown to effectively reduce noise streaks in CT because the data inconsistency associated with photon-starved regions may be mitigated prior to the log transformation step. However, a systematic study of the performance of these raw data correction methods is still missing in literature. The purpose of this work was to provide such a systematic study for two well-known low-signal correction schemes using either the adaptive trimmed mean (ATM) filter or the anisotropic diffusion (AD) filter in the raw counts domain. Methods Image data were acquired experimentally using an anthropomorphic chest phantom and a benchtop cone-beam CT (CBCT) imaging system. Phantom scans were repeated 50 times at a reduced dose level of 0.5 mGy and a reference level of 1.9 mGy. The measured raw counts at 0.5 mGy underwent LSC using the ATM and AD filters. Two relevant parameters were identified for each filter and approximately one hundred operating points in each parameter space were analyzed. Following LSC and log transformation, FDK reconstruction was performed for each case. Noise and spatial resolution properties were assessed across the parameter spaces that define each LSC filter; the results were summarized through 2D contour maps to better understand the trade-offs between these competing image quality features. 2D noise power spectrum (NPS) and modulation transfer function (MTF) were measured locally at two spatial locations in the field-of-view (FOV): a posterior region contaminated by noise streaks and an anterior region away from noise streaks. An isotropy score metric was introduced to characterize the directional dependence of the NPS and MTF (viz., ϵNPS and ϵMTF , respectively), with a range from 0 for highly anisotropic to 1 for perfectly isotropic. The noise magnitude and coarseness were also measured. Results (a) Both the ATM and AD LSC methods were successful in reducing noise streaks, but their noise and spatial resolution properties were found to be highly anisotropic and shift-variant. (b) NPS isotropy scores in the posterior region were generally improved from ϵNPS = 0.09 for the images without LSC to the range ϵNPS = (0.11, 0.67) for ATM and ϵNPS = (0.06, 0.67) for AD, depending on the filter parameters used. (c) The noise magnitude was reduced across the parameter space of either LSC filter whenever a change along the axis of the controlling parameter led to stronger raw data filtration. Changes in noise magnitude were inversely related to changes in spatial resolution along the direction perpendicular to the streaks. No correlation was found, however, between the contour maps of noise magnitude and the NPS isotropy. (d) Both filters influenced the noise coarseness anisotropically, with coarser noise occurring along directions perpendicular to the noise streaks. The anisotropic noise coarseness was intrinsically and directly related to resolution losses in a given direction: coarseness plots mimic the topography of the 2D MTF, i.e., the coarser the noise, the lower the resolution. Conclusions Both AD and ATM LSC schemes enable low-dose CBCT imaging. However, it was found that noise magnitude and overall spatial resolution vary considerably across the parameter space for each filter, and more importantly these image quality features are highly anisotropic and shift-variant.