Biomedical subjects

Jeffrey A Fessler

Publications and source records attributed to Jeffrey A Fessler.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Segmentation-free statistical image reconstruction for polyenergetic x-ray computed tomography with experimental validation.

This paper describes a statistical image reconstruction method for x-ray CT that is based on a physical model that accounts for the polyenergetic x-ray source spectrum and the measurement nonlinearities caused by energy-dependent attenuation. Unlike our earlier work, the proposed algorithm does not require pre-segmentation of the object into the various tissue classes (e.g., bone and soft tissue) and allows mixed pixels. The attenuation coefficient of each voxel is modelled as the product of its unknown density and a weighted sum of energy-dependent mass attenuation coefficients. We formulate a penalized-likelihood function for this polyenergetic model and develop an iterative algorithm for estimating the unknown density of each voxel. Applying this method to simulated x-ray CT measurements of objects containing both bone and soft tissue yields images with significantly reduced beam hardening artefacts relative to conventional beam hardening correction methods. We also apply the method to real data acquired from a phantom containing various concentrations of potassium phosphate solution. The algorithm reconstructs an image with accurate density values for the different concentrations, demonstrating its potential for quantitative CT applications.

Absorptiometry, Photon↗

PubMed2003

Fast, iterative image reconstruction for MRI in the presence of field inhomogeneities.

In magnetic resonance imaging, magnetic field inhomogeneities cause distortions in images that are reconstructed by conventional fast Fourier trasform (FFT) methods. Several noniterative image reconstruction methods are used currently to compensate for field inhomogeneities, but these methods assume that the field map that characterizes the off-resonance frequencies is spatially smooth. Recently, iterative methods have been proposed that can circumvent this assumption and provide improved compensation for off-resonance effects. However, straightforward implementations of such iterative methods suffer from inconveniently long computation times. This paper describes a tool for accelerating iterative reconstruction of field-corrected MR images: a novel time-segmented approximation to the MR signal equation. We use a min-max formulation to derive the temporal interpolator. Speedups of around 60 were achieved by combining this temporal interpolator with a nonuniform fast Fourier transform with normalized root mean squared approximation errors of 0.07%. The proposed method provides fast, accurate, field-corrected image reconstruction even when the field map is not smooth.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2003

Globally convergent image reconstruction for emission tomography using relaxed ordered subsets algorithms.

We present two types of globally convergent relaxed ordered subsets (OS) algorithms for penalized-likelihood image reconstruction in emission tomography: modified block sequential regularized expectation-maximization (BSREM) and relaxed OS separable paraboloidal surrogates (OS-SPS). The global convergence proof of the existing BSREM (De Pierro and Yamagishi, 2001) required a few a posteriori assumptions. By modifying the scaling functions of BSREM, we are able to prove the convergence of the modified BSREM under realistic assumptions. Our modification also makes stepsize selection more convenient. In addition, we introduce relaxation into the OS-SPS algorithm (Erdoğan and Fessler, 1999) that otherwise would converge to a limit cycle. We prove the global convergence of diagonally scaled incremental gradient methods of which the relaxed OS-SPS is a special case; main results of the proofs are from (Nedić and Bertsekas, 2001) and (Correa and Lemaréchal, 1993). Simulation results showed that both new algorithms achieve global convergence yet retain the fast initial convergence speed of conventional unrelaxed ordered subsets algorithms.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2003

A penalized-likelihood image reconstruction method for emission tomography, compared to postsmoothed maximum-likelihood with matched spatial resolution.

Regularization is desirable for image reconstruction in emission tomography. A powerful regularization method is the penalized-likelihood (PL) reconstruction algorithm (or equivalently, maximum a posteriori reconstruction), where the sum of the likelihood and a noise suppressing penalty term (or Bayesian prior) is optimized. Usually, this approach yields position-dependent resolution and bias. However, for some applications in emission tomography, a shift-invariant point spread function would be advantageous. Recently, a new method has been proposed, in which the penalty term is tuned in every pixel to impose a uniform local impulse response. In this paper, an alternative way to tune the penalty term is presented. We performed positron emission tomography and single photon emission computed tomography simulations to compare the performance of the new method to that of the postsmoothed maximum-likelihood (ML) approach, using the impulse response of the former method as the postsmoothing filter for the latter. For this experiment, the noise properties of the PL algorithm were not superior to those of postsmoothed ML reconstruction.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2003

Relaxed ordered-subset algorithm for penalized-likelihood image restoration.

The expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for maximum-likelihood image recovery is guaranteed to converge, but it converges slowly. Its ordered-subset version (OS-EM) is used widely in tomographic image reconstruction because of its order-of-magnitude acceleration compared with the EM algorithm, but it does not guarantee convergence. Recently the ordered-subset, separable-paraboloidal-surrogate (OS-SPS) algorithm with relaxation has been shown to converge to the optimal point while providing fast convergence. We adapt the relaxed OS-SPS algorithm to the problem of image restoration. Because data acquisition in image restoration is different from that in tomography, we employ a different strategy for choosing subsets, using pixel locations rather than projection angles. Simulation results show that the relaxed OS-SPS algorithm can provide an order-of-magnitude acceleration over the EM algorithm for image restoration. This new algorithm now provides the speed and guaranteed convergence necessary for efficient image restoration.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2002

Clinically feasible reconstruction of 3D whole-body PET/CT data using blurred anatomical labels.

We present the results of utilizing aligned anatomical information from CT images to locally adjust image smoothness during the reconstruction of three-dimensional (3D) whole-body positron emission tomography (PET) data. The ability of whole-body PET imaging to detect malignant neoplasms is becoming widely recognized. Potentially useful, however, is the role of whole-body PET in quantitative estimation of tracer uptake. The utility of PET in oncology is often limited by the high level of statistical noise in the images. Reduction in noise can be obtained by incorporating a priori image smoothness information from correlated anatomical information during the reconstruction of PET data. A combined PET/CT scanner allows the acquisition of accurately aligned PET and x-ray CT whole-body data. We use the Fourier rebinning algorithm (FORE) to accurately convert the 3D PET data to two-dimensional (2D) data to accelerate the image reconstruction process. The 2D datasets are reconstructed with successive over-relaxation of a penalized weighted least squares (PWLS) objective function to model the statistics of the acquisition, data corrections, and rebinning. A 3D voxel label model is presented that incorporates the anatomical information via the penalty weights of the PWLS objective function. This combination of FORE + PWLS + labels was developed as it allows for both reconstruction of 3D whole-body data sets in clinically feasible times and also the inclusion of anatomical information in such a way that convergence can be guaranteed. Since mismatches between anatomical (CT) and functional (PET) data are unavoidable in practice, the labels are 'blurred' to reflect the uncertainty associated with the anatomical information. Simulated and experimental results show the potential advantage of incorporating anatomical information by using blurred labels to calculate the penalty weights. We conclude that while the effect of this method on detection tasks is complicated and unclear, there is an improvement on the estimation task.

Computer Simulation↗

PubMed2002

Statistical image reconstruction for polyenergetic X-ray computed tomography.

This paper describes a statistical image reconstruction method for X-ray computed tomography (CT) that is based on a physical model that accounts for the polyenergetic X-ray source spectrum and the measurement nonlinearities caused by energy-dependent attenuation. We assume that the object consists of a given number of nonoverlapping materials, such as soft tissue and bone. The attenuation coefficient of each voxel is the product of its unknown density and a known energy-dependent mass attenuation coefficient. We formulate a penalized-likelihood function for this polyenergetic model and develop an ordered-subsets iterative algorithm for estimating the unknown densities in each voxel. The algorithm monotonically decreases the cost function at each iteration when one subset is used. Applying this method to simulated X-ray CT measurements of objects containing both bone and soft tissue yields images with significantly reduced beam hardening artifacts.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2002

Edge-preserving tomographic reconstruction with nonlocal regularization.

Tomographic image reconstruction using statistical methods can provide more accurate system modeling, statistical models, and physical constraints than the conventional filtered backprojection (FBP) method. Because of the ill posedness of the reconstruction problem, a roughness penalty is often imposed on the solution to control noise. To avoid smoothing of edges, which are important image attributes, various edge-preserving regularization methods have been proposed. Most of these schemes rely on information from local neighborhoods to determine the presence of edges. In this paper, we propose a cost function that incorporates nonlocal boundary information into the regularization method. We use an alternating minimization algorithm with deterministic annealing to minimize the proposed cost function, jointly estimating region boundaries and object pixel values. We apply variational techniques implemented using level-sets methods to update the boundary estimates; then, using the most recent boundary estimate, we minimize a space-variant quadratic cost function to update the image estimate. For the positron emission tomography transmission reconstruction application, we compare the bias-variance tradeoff of this method with that of a "conventional" penalized-likelihood algorithm with local Huber roughness penalty.

Algorithms↗