C-arm Tomographic Imaging Technique for Nephrolithiasis and Detection of Kidney Stones

In this paper, we investigated a C-arm tomographic technique as a new three dimensional (3D) kidney imaging method for nephrolithiasis and kidney stone detection over view angle less than 180o. Our C-arm tomographic technique provides a series of two dimensional (2D) images with a single scan over 40o view angle. Experimental studies were performed with a kidney phantom that was formed from a pig kidney with two embedded kidney stones. Different reconstruction methods were developed for C-arm tomographic technique to generate 3D kidney information including: point by point back projection (BP), filtered back projection (FBP), simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique (SART) and maximum likelihood expectation maximization (MLEM). Computer simulation study was also done with simulated 3D spherical object to evaluate the reconstruction results. Preliminary results demonstrated the capability of our C-arm tomographic technique to generate 3D kidney information for kidney stone detection with low exposure of radiation. The kidney stones are visible on reconstructed planes with identifiable shapes and sizes.