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Modulation transfer function measurement of CT images by use of a circular edge method with a logistic curve-fitting technique

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Abstract

We propose a method for measuring the modulation transfer function (MTF) of a computed tomography (CT) system by use of a circular edge method with a logistic curve-fitting technique. An American College of Radiology (ACR) phantom was scanned by a Philips Brilliance system, and axial images were reconstructed by the filtered back projection algorithm with a standard reconstruction filter. The radial MTF was measured from a disk image of a rod or cylinder in the ACR phantom by use of the circular edge method. In this study, we applied a logistic curve-fitting technique to an edge-spread function (ESF) to eliminate noise because the edge method is very susceptible to noise in the ESF in a CT image. The circular edge method with the logistic curve-fitting technique provided the MTF without fluctuations due to noise for the entire spatial frequency range. The MTF was not affected by the tube current, the slice thickness, or the disk contrast, which were factors related to the amount of noise in the CT image. However, the MTF was affected by the location of the disk and by the disk size, depending on the average distance from the isocenter to the disk edge. Our results indicated that the MTF measured by the circular edge method with the logistic curve-fitting technique was not susceptible to noise in CT images. Therefore, this method is useful for MTF measurement for not only high-contrast objects, but also low-contrast objects with a large amount of noise.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 22611014.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kumamoto University, 4-24-1 Kuhonji, Kumamoto, 862-0976, Japan

    Tomomi Takenaga

  2. Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University, 4-24-1 Kuhonji, Kumamoto, 862-0976, Japan

    Shigehiko Katsuragawa, Yoshikazu Uchiyama & Junji Shiraishi

  3. Faculty of Fukuoka Medical Technology, Teikyo University, 6-22 Misakimachi, Omuta, Fukuoka, 836-0037, Japan

    Shigehiko Katsuragawa

  4. Department of Radiology, Kumamoto University Hospital, 1-1 Honjyo, Kumamoto, 862-0976, Japan

    Makoto Goto & Masahiro Hatemura

Authors
  1. Tomomi Takenaga
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  2. Shigehiko Katsuragawa
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  3. Makoto Goto
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  4. Masahiro Hatemura
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  5. Yoshikazu Uchiyama
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  6. Junji Shiraishi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tomomi Takenaga.

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Takenaga, T., Katsuragawa, S., Goto, M. et al. Modulation transfer function measurement of CT images by use of a circular edge method with a logistic curve-fitting technique. Radiol Phys Technol 8, 53–59 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-014-0286-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-014-0286-x

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