A compressed sensing-based iterative algorithm for CT reconstruction and its possible application to phase contrast imaging

BACKGROUND: Computed Tomography (CT) is a technology that obtains the tomogram of the observed objects. In real-world applications, especially the biomedical applications, lower radiation dose have been constantly pursued. To shorten scanning time and reduce radiation dose, one can decrease X-ray exposure time at each projection view or decrease the number of projections. Until quite recently, the traditional filtered back projection (FBP) method has been commonly exploited in CT image reconstruction. Applying the FBP method requires using a large amount of projection data. Especially when the exposure speed is limited by the mechanical characteristic of the imaging facilities, using FBP method may prolong scanning time and cumulate with a high dose of radiation consequently damaging the biological specimens. METHODS: In this paper, we present a compressed sensing-based (CS-based) iterative algorithm for CT reconstruction. The algorithm minimizes the l(1)-norm of the sparse image as the constraint factor for the iteration procedure. With this method, we can reconstruct images from substantially reduced projection data and reduce the impact of artifacts introduced into the CT reconstructed image by insufficient projection information. RESULTS: To validate and evaluate the performance of this CS-base iterative algorithm, we carried out quantitative evaluation studies in imaging of both software Shepp-Logan phantom and real polystyrene sample. The former is completely absorption based and the later is imaged in phase contrast. The results show that the CS-based iterative algorithm can yield images with quality comparable to that obtained with existing FBP and traditional algebraic reconstruction technique (ART) algorithms. DISCUSSION: Compared with the common reconstruction from 180 projection images, this algorithm completes CT reconstruction from only 60 projection images, cuts the scan time, and maintains the acceptable quality of the reconstructed images.