Flat panel detector-based volume tomographic angiography imaging: Detector evaluation

Recent development of large area flat panel solid state detector arrays indicates that flat panel image sensors have some common potential advantages: compactness, absence of geometric distortion and veiling glare with the benefits of high resolution, high DQE, high frame rate and high dynamic range, small image lag (<1%) and excellent linearity (approximately 1%). The advantages of the new flat-panel detector make it a promising candidate for cone beam volume tomographic angiography imaging. The purpose of this study is to characterize a Selenium thin film transistor (STFT) flat panel detector-based imaging system for cone beam volume tomographic angiography imaging applications. A prototype STFT detector-based cone beam volume tomographic angiography imaging system has been designed and constructed based on the modification of a GE 8800 CT scanner. This system is evaluated using a vascular phantom with different x-ray spectra, different sizes of vessels and different iodine concentration levels. The results indicate that with the currently available STFT flat panel detector, 90 kVp is the optimal kVp to achieve the highest signal-to-noise ratio for volume tomographic angiography imaging and the low contrast resolution of the system is 4mg/ml iodine for a 2 mm vessel.