Improved total variation minimization method for few-view computed tomography image reconstruction

Background: Due to the harmful radiation dose effects for patients, minimizing the x-ray exposure risk has been an area of active research in medical computed tomography (CT) imaging. In CT, reducing the number of projection views is an effective means for reducing dose. The use of fewer projection views can also lead to a reduced imaging time and minimizing potential motion artifacts. However, conventional CT image reconstruction methods will appears prominent streak artifacts for few-view data. Inspired by the compressive sampling (CS) theory, iterative CT reconstruction algorithms have been developed and generated impressive results. Method: In this paper, we propose a few-view adaptive prior image total variation (API-TV) algorithm for CT image reconstruction. The prior image reconstructed by a conventional analytic algorithm such as filtered backprojection (FBP) algorithm from densely angular-sampled projections. Results: To validate and evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, we carried out quantitative evaluation studies in computer simulation and physical experiment. Conclusion: The results show that the API-TV algorithm can yield images with quality comparable to that obtained with existing algorithms.