Program Information
Selecting a Cardiac-Specific CT System Architecture
P FitzGerald1*, J Bennett2, J Carr3, P Edic1, D Entrikin3, H Gao1, M Iatrou4, Y Jin1, B Liu5, G Wang2, J Wang1, Z Yin1, H Yu5, K Zeng4, B De Man1, (1) GE Global Research Center, Niskayuna, NY, (2) VT-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Blacksburg, VA, (3) Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-salem, NC, (4) Formerly of GE Global Research Center, Niskayuna, NY, (5) VT-WFU School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Winston-salem, NC
SU-C-134-3 Sunday 1:00PM - 1:55PM Room: 134Purpose:
To identify the most promising system architecture(s) for a cardiac CT-specific scanner of the future by performing a broad search and comparative evaluation of candidate architectures.
Methods:
We first performed a literature survey and consulted with cardiologists in order to identify the critical requirements for a cardiac CT scanner. Based on these requirements, we considered a broad range of potential architectures. We developed a scoring system to rate these candidates with respect to performance, development simplicity, and production cost (value). We applied our scoring system to identify the most promising candidate architectures. We then performed a more detailed analysis of six high-scoring candidates; we evaluated the detailed results using a Six Sigma Priority Matrix.
Results:
We identified the following key requirements for a cardiac-specific CT scanner: 300 mm transaxial field of view (FOV); 160 mm longitudinal coverage; 50 ms temporal resolution; 20 lp/mm spatial resolution; 10 Hounsfield Units (HU) noise; and <1 mSv radiation dose. Facilitated using TRIZ methods, we identified thirty potential architectures that could be applied for a cardiac-specific CT scanner. These architectures were selected from classes including single- and multiple-source/detector third-generation designs; designs with multiple focal spots in one and two dimensions; a variety of fully- and semi-stationary designs; and two rather novel concepts. Of these, we ultimately identified two architectures that best satisfy the key requirements and are most likely to provide a solution as a high performance CT scanner of the future: a triple-source system and an arc-source system.
Conclusion:
This work indicates that there is an opportunity to develop a CT system specifically for cardiac imaging that can substantially exceed the performance of contemporary general-purpose CT scanners, and provide very high temporal resolution, diagnostic quality images of the entire heart, at very low radiation dose.
Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: This work was supported by NIH/NIBIB grant EB011785.
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