Scatter compensation in digital chest radiography using Fourier deconvolution

The authors present a numerical deconvolution technique to compensate for image degrading effects caused by scattered photons in radiographic chest images. Fourier transform techniques are used to deconvolve a shift invariant model of the two dimensional point spread response functions of the scattered radiation. This approach uses a digitized radiograph acquired with a standard chest imaging protocol, so no specialized imaging equipment is required. While the shift variant shape of the scatter model is optimized for the lung field, effective compensation is provided when this model shape is applied to other chest regions. Preliminary evaluation suggests that this technique can provide improved image contrast over the entire chest region.