A simple formulation for deriving effective atomic numbers via electron density calibration from dual-energy CT data in the human body

A standard definition is proposed for the Hounsfield number. Any number in computed tomography can be converted to the Hounsfield scale after performing a simple calibration using air and water. The energy dependence of the Hounsfield number, H, is given by the expression H = (Hc + Hp Q)/(1 + Q), where Hc and Hp are the Compton and photoelectric coefficients of the material being measured, expressed in Hounsfield units, and Q is the "quality factor" of the scanner. Q can be measured by performing a scan of a single calibrating material, such as a potassium iodine solution. By applying this analysis to dual energy scans, the Compton and photoelectric coefficients of an unknown substance may easily be obtained. This can lead to a limited degree of chemical identification.

To assess image quality and to quantify the accuracy of relative electron densities (ρe ) and effective atomic numbers (Zeff ) for three dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) scanners: a novel single-source split-filter (i.e., twin-beam) and two dual-source scanners.

Dual energy CT (DECT) allows calculating images that show the spatial distribution of the electron density and the atomic number or, more common, images of two basis material densities. In contrast, the Hounsfield unit that is shown in standard CT images is a measure of the x-ray attenuation, which is a function of the atomic number and electron density. To acquire additional information, DECT measures the object of interest using two different detected x-ray spectra. Most clinical CT scanners realize dual energy CT by fast tube voltage switching or by dual source dual detector arrangements and therefore do not allow measuring geometrically identical lines with each spectrum. Then, it is not possible to preprocess the raw data and calculate dual energy-specific raw data sets. The combination of the information of both spectra rather needs to be carried out in image domain after image reconstruction. Compared to the ideal raw data-based dual energy approaches, those image-based DECT methods are inferior because they are not able to correctly deal with the polychromatic nature of the x-rays. This article proposes a dedicated dual energy reconstruction algorithm for inconsistent rays that correctly accounts for all spectral effects.