Performance of cone beam CT using a flat-panel imager

An active matrix flat-panel imager (FPI) is a good candidate for the 2-dimensional detector of cone beam CT (CBCT), because it has a wider dynamic range and less geometrical distortion than video-fluoroscopic system so far employed. However the performance of FPI-based CBCT has not been sufficiently examined yet. The aim of this work is to examine the performance of CBCT using a FPI with several phantoms. An X-ray tube, a phantom and a FPI were aligned on an experimental table. The FPI was PaxScan2520 provided by Varian Medical Systems. It has an active area of approximately 180x240mm and the pixel size is 127 micrometer. Csl is used as a scintillator. The phantom was rotated with I-degree steps while 360 projection frames (1408x1888 active pixels each frame) were collected. 2x2 pixels were combined into a single pixel to reduce noise. 512x512x512 voxels were reconstructed with the Feldkamp method. The comparison was made between reconstructed images with or without scatter rejecting grid. The uniformity and linearity of reconstruction value was drastically improved with the grid. Scatter rejection using a thin-vane collimator was also examined, and it showed more effective than the grid.