SPARSE DATA RECONSTRUCTION FOR GATED X-RAY CT IMAGING

摘要

When imaging a compact structure, such as a calcium deposit in a patient's heart, a slow scan (e.g., less than approximately 6 rpm) CT data acquisition is performed, wherein data is continuously but sparsely acquired during around a 360° revolution around the patient. Arc segments are defined that equate to one heart cycle (e.g., heartbeat) given the patient's heart rate and the speed of the CT gantry. Electrocardiogram signal data is used to identify sets of acquired projection data that correspond to each of a plurality of heart cycle phases during which the heart is relatively still. A sparse reconstruction algorithm is executed on the identified sets of sparse projection data to generate images for each heart cycle phase from the scan data acquired for that phase across all heart cycles.