Deconvolution for limited-view streak artifacts removal: improvements upon an existing approach

Abstract

Cardiac C-Arm computed tomography leads to a view-starved reconstruction problem because of electrocardiogram gating. Reconstruction with the Feldkamp, Davis and Kress method (FDK) generates large streak artifacts in the reconstructed volumes, hampering the medical interpretation. In order to remove these artifacts, deconvolution techniques have been proposed. In this paper, we start from a recent inverse filtering method developed for streak artifact removal. Two ways to improve upon this method are described. It is then proposed to replace inverse filtering with an iterative deconvolution scheme. Finally, we show that the iterative deconvolution method can itself be replaced by iterative filtered back projection (IFBP). The IFBP approach is flexible and could be used in a broad range of applications, while the improved inverse filtering approaches are computationally less demanding and better suited for time-critical applications.