Patent ID: 7627080

Claim:
A CT system for determining the quantitative material concentrations of the components in a region of interest of an object with known Compton attenuation coefficients and photoelectric attenuation coefficients for said components comprising: a scanning unit having a radiation source and a detector unit for acquisition of spectral CT projection data from said region of interest; a modeling unit for obtaining a photoelectric effect projection data set and a Compton effect projection data set by decomposing said spectral CT projection data set by means of respective models of photoelectric effect and Compton effect; a reconstruction unit for reconstructing a photoelectric effect image and a Compton effect image of said region of interest from said photoelectric effect projection data set and Compton effect projection data set; a processing unit for determining the concentrations of said components in said region of interest by solving a system of equations obtained by equating said photoelectric effect image data with the accumulated products of said concentrations and photoelectric attenuation coefficients for said components and equating said Compton effect image data with the accumulated products of said concentrations and Compton attenuation coefficients for said components.