AbstractID: 9813 Title: Flat Panel Detector-based Cone Beam Volume CT Imaging
A great deal effort has been devoted to the development of the cone beam volume
computed tomography imaging technique in the past. It is proposed to address the
limitations of current helical CT in medical imaging with the cone beam volume CT
(CBVCT) imaging technique which uses a cone beam geometry volume scan and a two
dimensional detector. True CBVCT is the next evolutionary step of CT development.
Actually, a few CBVCT prototypes have been introduced in the past decade, and the
development of the flat panel detector (FPD) is making CBVCT imaging more
competitive.
The author will discuss the principals of cone beam volume CT, its potential
clinical advantages over conventional CT and spiral CT (including multi-slice CT), key
technical problems to be solved, and the development of cone beam reconstruction
algorithms. The author has been working on four applications of the CBVCT imaging
technique for over ten years: 1. cone beam volume CT angiography, 2. cone beam
volume CT for lung cancer detection, 3. cone beam volume CT breast imaging and 4.
micro-cone beam volume CT for small animal imaging. The results of phantom, animal
or specimen studies for each application of CBVCT will be presented and the future
directions of these projects will be outlined.
KEYWORDS: cone beam volume CT, cone beam reconstruction, digital subtraction
angiography, digital mammography, mammography, flat panel detector, breast imaging.