Imaging liver lesions using grating-based phase-contrast computed tomography with bi-lateral filter post-processing

Herzen J, Willner MS, Fingerle AA, Noel PB, Koehler T, Drecoll E, Rummeny EJ, Pfeiffer F (2014)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2014

Journal

PLoS ONE Public Library of Science

Book Volume: 9

Article Number: e83369

Journal Issue: 1

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0083369

Abstract

X-ray phase-contrast imaging shows improved soft-tissue contrast compared to standard absorption-based X-ray imaging. Especially the grating-based method seems to be one promising candidate for clinical implementation due to its extendibility to standard laboratory X-ray sources. Therefore the purpose of our study was to evaluate the potential of grating-based phase-contrast computed tomography in combination with a novel bi-lateral denoising method for imaging of focal liver lesions in an ex vivo feasibility study. Our study shows that grating-based phase-contrast CT (PCCT) significantly increases the soft-tissue contrast in the ex vivo liver specimens. Combining the information of both signals - absorption and phase-contrast - the bi-lateral filtering leads to an improvement of lesion detectability and higher contrast-to-noise ratios. The normal and the pathological tissue can be clearly delineated and even internal structures of the pathological tissue can be visualized, being invisible in the absorption-based CT alone. Histopathology confirmed the presence of the corresponding findings in the analyzed tissue. The results give strong evidence for a sufficiently high contrast for different liver lesions using non-contrast-enhanced PCCT. Thus, ex vivo imaging of liver lesions is possible with a polychromatic X-ray source and at a spatial resolution of ∼100 μm. The post-processing with the novel bi-lateral denoising method improves the image quality by combining the information from the absorption and the phase-contrast images. © 2014 Herzen et al.

Involved external institutions

Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht Zentrum für Material- und Küstenforschung GmbH (HZG) DE Germany (DE) Technische Universität München (TUM) DE Germany (DE) Philips Deutschland GmbH DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Herzen, J., Willner, M.S., Fingerle, A.A., Noel, P.B., Koehler, T., Drecoll, E.,... Pfeiffer, F. (2014). Imaging liver lesions using grating-based phase-contrast computed tomography with bi-lateral filter post-processing. PLoS ONE, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083369

MLA:

Herzen, Julia, et al. "Imaging liver lesions using grating-based phase-contrast computed tomography with bi-lateral filter post-processing." PLoS ONE 9.1 (2014).

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