No Arabic abstract
The purpose of this work is to develop viable procedures for verifying the applicability of personalized dosimetry in computed tomography (CT) using Monte Carlo-based simulations. Mobile equipment together with customized software was developed and used for rapid, non-invasive determination of equivalent source models of CT scanners under clinical conditions. Standard and anthropomorphic CT dose phantoms equipped with real-time CT dose probes at five representative positions were scanned. The accumulated dose was measured during the scan at the five positions. ImpactMC, a Monte Carlo-based CT dose software program, was used to simulate the scan. The necessary inputs were obtained from the scan parameters, from the equivalent source models and from the material-segmented CT images of the phantoms. Post-scan 3D dose distributions in the phantoms were simulated and the dose values calculated at the five positions inside the phantom were compared to measured dose values. Initial results were obtained by means of a General Electric Optima CT 660 and a Toshiba (Canon) Aquilion ONE. In general, the measured and calculated dose values were within relative uncertainties that had been estimated to be less than 10%. The procedures developed, which allow the post-CT scan dose to be measured and calculated at five points inside anthropomorphic phantoms, were found to be viable and rapid. The procedures are applicable to any scanner type under clinical conditions. Results show that the procedures are well suited for verifying the applicability of personalized CT dosimetry based on post-scan Monte Carlo calculations.
A computer-aided detection (CAD) system for the identification of pulmonary nodules in low-dose multi-detector helical Computed Tomography (CT) images with 1.25 mm slice thickness is presented. The basic modules of our lung-CAD system, a dot-enhancement filter for nodule candidate selection and a neural classifier for false-positive finding reduction, are described. The results obtained on the collected database of lung CT scans are discussed.
A computer-aided detection (CAD) system for the identification of pulmonary nodules in low-dose multi-detector helical Computed Tomography (CT) images was developed in the framework of the MAGIC-5 Italian project. One of the main goals of this project is to build a distributed database of lung CT scans in order to enable automated image analysis through a data and cpu GRID infrastructure. The basic modules of our lung-CAD system, a dot-enhancement filter for nodule candidate selection and a neural classifier for false-positive finding reduction, are described. The system was designed and tested for both internal and sub-pleural nodules. The results obtained on the collected database of low-dose thin-slice CT scans are shown in terms of free response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curves and discussed.
A computer-aided detection (CAD) system for the identification of lung internal nodules in low-dose multi-detector helical Computed Tomography (CT) images was developed in the framework of the MAGIC-5 project. The three modules of our lung CAD system, a segmentation algorithm for lung internal region identification, a multi-scale dot-enhancement filter for nodule candidate selection and a multi-scale neural technique for false positive finding reduction, are described. The results obtained on a dataset of low-dose and thin-slice CT scans are shown in terms of free response receiver operating characteristic (FROC) curves and discussed.
Computer tomography is one of the most promising new methods to image abnormal tissues inside the human body. Tomography is also used to position the patient accurately before radiation therapy. Hadron therapy for treating cancer has become one of the most advantageous and safe options. In order to fully utilize the advantages of hadron therapy, there is a necessity of performing radiography with hadrons as well. In this paper we present the development of a proton computed tomography system. Our second-generation proton tomography system consists of two upstream and two downstream trackers made up of fibers as active material and a range detector consisting of plastic scintillators. We present details of the detector system, readout electronics, and data acquisition system as well as the commissioning of the entire system. We also present preliminary results from the test beam of the range detector.
A computer-aided detection (CAD) system for the identification of pulmonary nodules in low-dose multi-detector computed-tomography (CT) images has been developed in the framework of the MAGIC-5 Italian project. One of the main goals of this project is to build a distributed database of lung CT scans in order to enable automated image analysis through a data and cpu GRID infrastructure. The basic modules of our lung-CAD system, consisting in a 3D dot-enhancement filter for nodule detection and a neural classifier for false-positive finding reduction, are described. The system was designed and tested for both internal and sub-pleural nodules. The database used in this study consists of 17 low-dose CT scans reconstructed with thin slice thickness (~300 slices/scan). The preliminary results are shown in terms of the FROC analysis reporting a good sensitivity (85% range) for both internal and sub-pleural nodules at an acceptable level of false positive findings (1-9 FP/scan); the sensitivity value remains very high (75% range) even at 1-6 FP/scan