Performance Investigation of a Hospital-grade X-ray Tube-based Differential Phase-contrast Cone Beam CT System

Differential phase contrast technique could be the next breakthrough in the field of CT imaging. While traditional absorption-based X-ray CT imaging is inefficient at differentiating soft tissues, phase-contrast technique offers great advantage as being able to produce higher contrast images utilizing the phase information of objects. Our long term goal is to develop a gantry-based hospital-grade X-ray tube differential phase contrast cone-beam CT (DPC-CBCT) technology which is able to achieve higher contrast noise ratio (CNR) in soft tissue imaging without increasing the dose level. Based on the micro-focus system built last year, a bench-top hospital-grade X-ray tube DPC-CBCT system is designed and constructed. The DPC-CBCT system consists of an X-ray source, i.e. a hospital-grade X-ray tube and a source grating, a high-resolution detector, a rotating phantom holder, a phase grating and an analyzer grating. Three-dimensional (3-D) phase-coefficients are reconstructed, providing us with images enjoying higher CNR than, yet equivalent dose level to, a conventional CBCT scan. Three important aspects of the system are investigated: a) The The system's performance in term of CNR of the reconstruction image with regard to dose levels, b) the impacts of different phase stepping schemes, i.e. 5 steps to 8 steps, in term of CNR on the reconstruction images, and c) the influence of magnification or position of the phantom on image quality, chiefly CNR. The investigations are accomplished via phantom study.