Noise properties of grating-based x-ray phase contrast computed tomography

To investigate the properties of tomographic grating-based phase contrast imaging with respect to its noise power spectrum and the energy dependence of the achievable contrast to noise ratio.

Tomographic simulations of an object with 11 cm diameter constituted of materials of biological interest were conducted at different energies ranging from 25 to 85 keV by using a wave propagation approach. Using a Monte Carlo simulation of the x-ray attenuation within the object, it is verified that the simulated measurement deposits the same dose within the object at each energy.

The noise in reconstructed phase contrast computed tomography images shows a maximum at low spatial frequencies. The contrast to noise ratio reaches a maximum around 45 keV for the simulated object. The general dependence of the contrast to noise on the energy appears to be independent of the material. Compared with reconstructed absorption contrast images, the reconstructed phase contrast images show sometimes better, sometimes worse, and sometimes similar contrast to noise, depending on the material and the energy.

Phase contrast images provide additional information to the conventional absorption contrast images and might thus be useful for medical applications. However, the observed noise power spectrum in reconstructed phase contrast images implies that the usual trade-off between noise and resolution is less efficient for phase contrast imaging compared with absorption contrast imaging. Therefore, high-resolution imaging is a strength of phase contrast imaging, but low-resolution imaging is not. This might hamper the clinical application of the method, in cases where a low spatial resolution is sufficient for diagnosis.