Development and initial demonstration of a low-dose dedicated fully 3D breast CT system

Based on earlier work demonstrating more complete, 3D cone beam sampling acquisition approaches that additionally facilitate chest wall imaging posterior to an uncompressed breast, a new, clinic-ready, low-dose breast CT system was developed and is undergoing initial clinical validation. The system includes a small focal spot pulsed x-ray source and 30x30cm 2 flat panel detector having 3 degrees of freedom of motion, and a radiopaque patient support that facilitates whole-breast and universal anterior chest-wall imaging. Data is acquired with fully-3D trajectories and iteratively reconstructed within minutes of acquisition. Performance characteristics include: sub-200 micron isotropic reconstructed resolution, low-dose (<4.5 mGy) fully-3D scans acquired in ∼1.5 min, clinic throughput of 1patient/11min, and DICOM compatible images. To date, 25 subjects have been successfully scanned. Characterization results and volumetric clinical images are presented including demonstration of routine anterior chest wall imaging and comparison with digital mammography. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Duke Scholars

Author Martin Paul Tornai Radiology