Anthropomorphic thorax phantom for cardio-respiratory motion simulation in tomographic imaging.

Anthropomorphic thorax phantom for cardio-respiratory motion simulation in tomographic imaging. Phys Med Biol. 2017 Dec 15;: Authors: Bolwin K, Czekalla B, Frohwein LJ, Buther F, Schäfers KP Abstract Patient motion during medical imaging using techniques such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), or single emission computed tomography (SPECT) is well known to degrade images leading to blurring effects or severe artifacts. Motion correction methods try to overcome this degrading effects. However, they need to be validated under realistic conditions. In the present work, a sophisticated anthropomorphic thorax phantom is presented that combines several aspects of a simulator for cardio-respiratory motion. The phantom allows to simulate various types of cardio-respiratory motions inside a human-like thorax including features such as inflatable lungs, beating left ventricular myocardium, respiration-induced motion of the left ventricle, moving lung lesions, and moving coronary artery plaques. The phantom is constructed MR-compatible. This allows to perform studies not only in PET, SPECT and CT, but also inside an MRI system. Technical features of the anthropomorphic thorax phantom Wilhelm are presented with regards to simulate motion effects in hybrid emission tomography and in radiotherapy. This is supplemented by a study on the detectability of small coronary plaque lesions i...
Source: Physics in Medicine and Biology - Category: Physics Authors: Tags: Phys Med Biol Source Type: research