Dynamic electronic collimation method for 3-D catheter tracking on a scanning-beam digital x-ray system

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Radiology
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Scanning-beam digital x-ray (SBDX) enables 3-D catheter tracking using tomosynthesis.
• Reducing radiation dose is crucial in fluoroscopic procedures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and evaluate a dose-reduced 3-D catheter tracking method using dynamic electronic collimation (DEC) in SBDX systems.
• To assess the impact of DEC on radiation dose and tracking accuracy.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective evaluation of SBDX detector data from a phantom study.
• Implementation of dynamic electronic collimation (DEC) by selectively deactivating focal spot positions.
• Monte Carlo simulations to calculate dose-area product (DAP) and peak skin dose (PSD).

Main Results:

• DEC reduced active focal spots per frame to 7.6% of the full field-of-view (FOV) value.
• Average DAP was reduced to 7.8% of the full FOV value.
• Peak skin dose (PSD) for moving catheters ranged from 33.6% to 34.8% of full FOV values.
• Root-mean-squared-deviation between DEC and full FOV 3-D tracking coordinates was < 0.1 mm.

Conclusions:

• Dynamic electronic collimation (DEC) is a feasible method for dose reduction in SBDX 3-D catheter tracking.
• DEC maintains high accuracy in 3-D catheter tracking, with minimal deviation compared to full FOV methods.