X-ray luminescence computed tomography system

Abstract

An X-ray excited optical computed tomography (OCT) system is disclosed herein, comprising an X-ray source, a sensing device, an imaging device, and a processing device. The X-ray source provides X-rays to irradiate a test object. The test object has fluorescent molecules that emit fluorescence upon X-ray irradiation. The sensing device senses the intensity of the X-rays passing through the test object when it is irradiated by X-rays to form an X-ray projection image. The imaging device captures an optical projection image of the fluorescence emitted by the test object when it is irradiated by X-rays. The processing device performs a first image processing on the X-ray projection image to form a first tomographic image, a second image processing on the optical projection image to form a second tomographic image, and a third image processing on the first and second tomographic images to form a fused tomographic image.

Claims

1. An X-ray excited optical computed tomography system, comprising: A carrier device having a rotation center relative to a test object and configured to rotate about the rotation center; an X-ray source disposed on the carrier device and configured to provide X-rays to irradiate the test object, wherein the test object has a plurality of fluorescent molecules, and the fluorescent molecules are excited to fluoresce when irradiated by the X-rays; a sensing device disposed on the carrier device and opposite to the X-ray source, and configured to sense the intensity of the X-rays passing through the test object to form a plurality of X-ray projection images in response to the rotation of the carrier device and the irradiation of the test object by the X-rays; an imaging device disposed on the carrier device and located between the X-ray source and the sensing device, and configured to capture a plurality of optical projection images of the fluorescence emitted by the test object in response to the rotation of the carrier device and the irradiation of the test object by the X-rays; and a processing device electrically connected to the sensing device and the imaging device, and configured to: The X-ray projection images are calibrated according to calibration information to form a plurality of calibrated X-ray projection images; the calibrated X-ray projection images are subjected to a first image processing to form a first tomographic image; the optical projection images are subjected to a pairing process according to a pairing alignment information to form a plurality of aligned optical projection images; the aligned optical projection images are subjected to a second image processing to form a second tomographic image; and the first tomographic image and the second tomographic image are subjected to a third image processing to form a fused tomographic image; wherein the calibration information is obtained by a calibration process on a first prosthesis, the first prosthesis including a body and a plurality of steel balls disposed on the body and arranged equidistantly along a baseline, wherein the calibration process includes: irradiating the first prosthesis with the X-ray source and obtaining a plurality of calibrated projection images by the sensing device, and analyzing the positional changes of the steel balls according to the calibrated projection images to obtain the distance between the X-ray source and the rotation center, the spatial position of the rotation center, and the deflection error of the rotation axis as the calibration information. The alignment information is obtained by performing an alignment process on a second prosthesis, which includes a container and fluorescent molecular material disposed in the container. The alignment process includes: obtaining the corresponding X-ray projection image and the optical projection image at a rotation angle, and calculating the offset between the X-ray projection image and the optical projection image at the corresponding rotation angle through image calculation as the alignment information.

2. The X-ray-excited optical computed tomography system as claimed in claim 1, wherein performing the second image processing on the optical projection images to form the second tomographic image includes: The optical projection images are subjected to noise reduction processing; the noise-reduced optical projection images are geometrically corrected using the Image Cross-Correlation (ICC) method; and the geometrically corrected optical projection images are aligned based on the alignment information to form aligned optical projection images.

3. The X-ray-excited optical computed tomography system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the first image processing system utilizes the FDK (Feldkamp–Davis–Kress) algorithm for image reconstruction.

4. The X-ray excited optical computed tomography system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the second image processing system uses the Simultaneous Iterative Reconstruction Technique (SIRT) algorithm to reconstruct images.

5. The X-ray-excited optical computed tomography system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the X-ray beam is a cone-shaped X-ray beam.

Images