Noise suppression in scatter correction for cone-beam CT

Scatter correction is crucial to the quality of reconstructed images in x-ray cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). Most of existing scatter correction methods assume smooth scatter distributions. The high-frequency scatter noise remains in the projection images even after a perfect scatter correction. In this paper, using a clinical CBCT system and a measurement-based scatter correction, the authors show that a scatter correction alone does not provide satisfactory image quality and the loss of the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the scatter corrected image may overwrite the benefit of scatter removal. To circumvent the problem and truly gain from scatter correction, an effective scatter noise suppression method must be in place. They analyze the noise properties in the projections after scatter correction and propose to use a penalized weighted least-squares (PWLS) algorithm to reduce the noise in the reconstructed images. Experimental results on an evaluation phantom (Catphan