First pass cable artefact correction for cardiac C-arm CT imaging.

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Radiology
• Image Reconstruction

Background:

• Cardiac C-arm CT provides region-of-interest reconstructions during interventions but suffers from truncation artifacts due to limited detector size.
• Existing artifact correction methods, like metal artifact reduction, are often unsuitable for limited field-of-view reconstructions, especially for structures outside the field of view.
• Pacing leads and cables on the patient's skin during cardiac interventions cause streak artifacts in C-arm CT reconstructions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and evaluate a novel first-pass correction method for reducing streak artifacts caused by external cables in cardiac C-arm CT.
• To assess the effectiveness of this method in improving the consistency and reducing the artifact level of reconstructed cardiac CT volumes.
• To demonstrate the practical application and benefits of the proposed artifact reduction technique on clinical datasets.

Main Methods:

• A first-pass approach was developed utilizing the changing projected positions of external objects across different projection perspectives.
• High-contrast structures (cables) were identified, tracked, and removed from a subset of projections before image reconstruction.
• The method was quantitatively evaluated using 50 simulated cardiac CT datasets with varying cable positions and compared against a ground truth without artifacts.

Main Results:

• The proposed first-pass correction method reduced the 3D root mean square deviation by an average of 37% in 96% of simulated cases.
• The artifact reduction ranged from -9% to 73%, demonstrating significant improvement in reconstruction consistency.
• Clinical whole-heart C-arm CT datasets showed improved image quality after applying the cable removal algorithm.

Conclusions:

• The developed first-pass artifact correction method is effective in mitigating streak artifacts from external cables in cardiac C-arm CT.
• This technique offers a practical solution for improving image quality and consistency in interventional cardiac imaging.
• The method shows promise for enhancing diagnostic accuracy and procedural guidance in cardiac interventions using C-arm CT.