Dual-Energy Electronic Cleansing for Artifact-Free Visualization of the Colon in Fecal-Tagging CT Colonography

摘要

The partial volume effect (PVE) is one of the major causes of the artifacts in electronic cleansing (EC) for fecal-tagging CT colonography (CTC). In this study, we developed a novel dual-energy EC (DC-EC) scheme for minimizing the EC artifacts caused by the PVE. In our approach, the colonic lumen, including air and tagged fecal materials, was first marked by a dual-energy index (DEI). The high DEI value of air and tagged fecal materials provides a means to efficiently differentiate the voxels at the boundary between air and tagged materials from those of the soft-tissue structures that have the DEI value of around zero. As a result, the colonic lumen, including air and tagged materials, could be accurately segmented based on their high DEI values. Our DE-EC scheme was shown to provide an electronically cleansed colon that is free from artifacts caused by the PVE at the air-tagging boundary.