An Empirical Method for Correcting the Detector Spectral Response in Energy-Resolved CT

Energy-resolving photon-counting detectors have the potential for improved material decomposition compared to dual-kVp approaches. However, material decomposition accuracy is limited by the nonideal spectral response of the detectors. This work proposes an empirical method for correcting the nonideal spectral response, including spectrum-tailing effects. Unlike previous correction methods which relied on synchrotron measurements, the proposed method can be performed on the scanner. The proposed method estimates a spectral-response matrix by performing x-ray projection measurements through a range of known thicknesses of two or more calibration materials. Once estimated, the spectral-response matrix is incorporated into conventional material decomposition algorithms. A simulation study investigated preliminary feasibility of the proposed method. The spectral-response matrix was estimated using simulated projection measurements through PMMA, aluminum, and gadolinium. An energy-resolved acquisition of a thorax phantom with gadolinium in the blood pool was simulated assuming a five-bin detector with realistic spectral response. Energy-bin data was decomposed into Compton, photoelectric, and gadolinium basis projections with and without the proposed correction method. Basis images were reconstructed by filtered backprojection. Results demonstrated that the nonideal spectral response reduced the ability to distinguish gadolinium from materials such as bone, while images reconstructed with the proposed correction method successfully depicted the contrast agent. The proposed correction method reduced errors from 9% to 0.6% in the Compton image, 90% to 0.6% in the photoelectric image and from 40% to 6% in the gadolinium image when using a three-material calibration. Overall, results support feasibility of the proposed spectral-response correction method.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only