Abstract: A method and apparatus is provided to iteratively reconstruct a computed tomography (CT) image using a spatially-varying content-oriented regularization parameter, thereby achieving uniform statistical properties within respective organs/regions and different statistical properties (e.g., degree of smoothing and noise level) among the respective organs/regions. For example, less smoothing and sharper features/resolution can be applied within a lung region than within a soft-tissue region by using a smaller regularization parameter value in the lung region than in the soft-tissue region. This can be achieved, e.g., using a minimum intensity projection to suppress/eliminate sub-solid nodules in the lung region. The content-oriented regularization parameter can be generated by reconstructing an initial CT image, which is then segmented/classified according to organs and/or tissue type.

Abstract: A method and apparatus is provided to iteratively reconstruct a computed tomography (CT) image using a spatially-varying content-oriented regularization parameter, thereby achieving uniform statistical properties within respective organs/regions and different statistical properties (e.g., degree of smoothing and noise level) among the respective organs/regions. For example, less smoothing and sharper features/resolution can be applied within a lung region than within a soft-tissue region by using a smaller regularization parameter value in the lung region than in the soft-tissue region. This can be achieved, e.g., using a minimum intensity projection to suppress/eliminate sub-solid nodules in the lung region. The content-oriented regularization parameter can be generated by reconstructing an initial CT image, which is then segmented/classified according to organs and/or tissue type.

Abstract: An apparatus for image reconstruction is provided, including processing circuitry to obtain, from a scan of a region of interest of a patient, raw projection data of the region of interest; reconstruct the raw projection data to produce image data; apply high dynamic range tone-mapping to the image data to produce tone-mapped image data by applying window width and window level parameters to the image data to produce adjusted image data, and calculating a contrast adjustment based on both the image data and the adjusted image data; and quantize the tone-mapped image data to produce quantized tone-mapped image data for display.

Abstract: An apparatus for image reconstruction is provided, including processing circuitry to obtain, from a scan of a region of interest of a patient, raw projection data of the region of interest; reconstruct the raw projection data to produce image data; apply high dynamic range tone-mapping to the image data to produce tone-mapped image data by applying window width and window level parameters to the image data to produce adjusted image data, and calculating a contrast adjustment based on both the image data and the adjusted image data; and quantize the tone-mapped image data to produce quantized tone-mapped image data for display.