Compressed-sensing-based fluorescence molecular tomographic image reconstruction with grouped sources

BACKGROUND: Although the quality of reconstructed results can be improved with the increment of the number of measurements, the scale of the matrices involved in the reconstruction of fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) will become larger, which leads to the poor efficiency of the process of tomographic image reconstruction. In this paper, we proposed a new method for image reconstruction of FMT based on compressed sensing, in which a scheme of grouped sources is incorporated. METHODS: The forward equations are implemented using the finite element method (FEM). The reconstruction model is formulated under the framework of compressed sensing theory. The regularization term and the total variation penalty are incorporated in the objective function. During the reconstruction of FMT, the sources are divided into two groups for iteration in turn. One group of sources is employed in the first iteration of inverse problem, and the other group is employed in the next iteration. RESULTS: Simulation results demonstrate that the computation time and mean square error (MSE) of the reconstruction with our algorithm are less than those with the traditional method. The proposed algorithm can reconstruct the target with enhanced contrast and more accurate shape. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed algorithm can significantly improve the speed and accuracy of the reconstruction of FMT. Furthermore, our compressed-sensing-based method can reduce the number of measurements.