Statistical iterative reconstruction using fast optimization transfer algorithm with successively increasing factor in Digital Breast Tomosynthesis

Abstract

Statistical iterative reconstruction exhibits particularly promising since it provides the flexibility of accurate physical noise modeling and geometric system description in transmission tomography system. However, to solve the objective function is computationally intensive compared to analytical reconstruction methods due to multiple iterations needed for convergence and each iteration involving forward/back-projections by using a complex geometric system model. Optimization transfer (OT) is a general algorithm converting a high dimensional optimization to a parallel 1-D update. OT-based algorithm provides a monotonic convergence and a parallel computing framework but slower convergence rate especially around the global optimal. Based on an indirect estimation on the spectrum of the OT convergence rate matrix, we proposed a successively increasing factor- scaled optimization transfer (OT) algorithm to seek an optimal step size for a faster rate. Compared to a representative OT based method such as separable parabolic surrogate with pre-computed curvature (PC-SPS), our algorithm provides comparable image quality (IQ) with fewer iterations. Each iteration retains a similar computational cost to PC-SPS. The initial experiment with a simulated Digital Breast Tomosynthesis (DBT) system shows that a total 40% computing time is saved by the proposed algorithm. In general, the successively increasing factor-scaled OT exhibits a tremendous potential to be a iterative method with a parallel computation, a monotonic and global convergence with fast rate.