TY - JOUR
T1 - Flat-panel conebeam CT in the clinic
T2 - history and current state
AU - Fahrig, Rebecca
AU - Jaffray, David A.
AU - Sechopoulos, Ioannis
AU - Webster Stayman, J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.
PY - 2021/9/1
Y1 - 2021/9/1
N2 - Research into conebeam CT concepts began as soon as the first clinical single-slice CT scanner was conceived. Early implementations of conebeam CT in the 1980s focused on high-contrast applications where concurrent high resolution (<200 μm), for visualization of small contrast-filled vessels, bones, or teeth, was an imaging requirement that could not be met by the contemporaneous CT scanners. However, the use of nonlinear imagers, e.g., x-ray image intensifiers, limited the clinical utility of the earliest diagnostic conebeam CT systems. The development of consumer-electronics large-area displays provided a technical foundation that was leveraged in the 1990s to first produce large-area digital x-ray detectors for use in radiography and then compact flat panels suitable for high-resolution and high-frame-rate conebeam CT. In this review, we show the concurrent evolution of digital flat panel (DFP) technology and clinical conebeam CT. We give a brief summary of conebeam CT reconstruction, followed by a brief review of the correction approaches for DFP-specific artifacts. The historical development and current status of flat-panel conebeam CT in four clinical areas - breast, fixed C-arm, image-guided radiation therapy, and extremity/head - is presented. Advances in DFP technology over the past two decades have led to improved visualization of high-contrast, high-resolution clinical tasks, and image quality now approaches the soft-tissue contrast resolution that is the standard in clinical CT. Future technical developments in DFPs will enable an even broader range of clinical applications; research in the arena of flat-panel CT shows no signs of slowing down.
AB - Research into conebeam CT concepts began as soon as the first clinical single-slice CT scanner was conceived. Early implementations of conebeam CT in the 1980s focused on high-contrast applications where concurrent high resolution (<200 μm), for visualization of small contrast-filled vessels, bones, or teeth, was an imaging requirement that could not be met by the contemporaneous CT scanners. However, the use of nonlinear imagers, e.g., x-ray image intensifiers, limited the clinical utility of the earliest diagnostic conebeam CT systems. The development of consumer-electronics large-area displays provided a technical foundation that was leveraged in the 1990s to first produce large-area digital x-ray detectors for use in radiography and then compact flat panels suitable for high-resolution and high-frame-rate conebeam CT. In this review, we show the concurrent evolution of digital flat panel (DFP) technology and clinical conebeam CT. We give a brief summary of conebeam CT reconstruction, followed by a brief review of the correction approaches for DFP-specific artifacts. The historical development and current status of flat-panel conebeam CT in four clinical areas - breast, fixed C-arm, image-guided radiation therapy, and extremity/head - is presented. Advances in DFP technology over the past two decades have led to improved visualization of high-contrast, high-resolution clinical tasks, and image quality now approaches the soft-tissue contrast resolution that is the standard in clinical CT. Future technical developments in DFPs will enable an even broader range of clinical applications; research in the arena of flat-panel CT shows no signs of slowing down.
KW - C-arm angiography
KW - breast CT
KW - conebeam CT
KW - dental conebeam CT
KW - digital flat panel
KW - extremity imaging
KW - flat-panel CT
KW - image-guided radiation therapy
KW - interventional radiology
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U2 - 10.1117/1.JMI.8.5.052115
DO - 10.1117/1.JMI.8.5.052115
M3 - Review article
C2 - 34722795
AN - SCOPUS:85118757331
SN - 2329-4302
VL - 8
JO - Journal of Medical Imaging
JF - Journal of Medical Imaging
IS - 5
M1 - 052115
ER -