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Impact of bowtie filter and detector collimation on multislice CT scatter profiles: a simulation study

Ruirui Liu, Shuang-Yue Zhang, Tian-Yu Zhao, J. O'Sullivan, J. Williamson, T. Webb, M. Porras-Chaverri, B. Whiting

Medical Physics (Lancaster), 2020

4 citations

Abstract

PURPOSE

To investigate via Monte Carlo simulations, the impact of scan subject size, antiscatter grid (ASG), collimator size, and bow-tie filter on the distribution of scatter radiation in a typical realistically modeled third generation 16 slice diagnostic CT scanner.

METHODS

Full radiation transport was simulated with Geant4 in a realistic CT scanner geometric model, including the imaging phantom, bowtie filter (BTF), collimators and detector assembly, except for the ASGs. An analytical method was employed to quantify the probable transmission through the ASG of each photon intersecting the detector array. Normalized scatter profiles (NSP) and scatter-to-primary-ratio (SPR) profiles were simulated for 90 kVp and 140 kVp beams for different size phantoms and slice thicknesses. The impact of CT scatter on the reconstructed attenuation coefficient factor was also studied as were the modulating effects of phantom- and patient-tissue heterogeneities on scatter profiles. A method to characterize the relative spatial frequency content of sinogram signals was developed to assess the latter.

RESULTS

For the 21.4 cm diameter phantom, NSP and SPR increase linearly with collimator opening for both tube potentials, with the 90 kVp scan exhibiting slightly larger NSP and SPR. The BTF modestly modulates scatter under the phantom center, reducing the prominent off-axis lobes by factors of 1.1-1.3. The ASG reduces scatter on the central axis NSP threefold, and reduces scatter at the…

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