Improving the quality of proton CT scan images by utilizing straggling power.

Abstract

Proton therapy has grown in interest within the medical community for its promise in cancer treatment. Proton CT (pCT) scans are an essential part of this process to map treatment areas, but a common problem is the lack of precision along the artifact boundaries within the image. It was hypothesized that combining two forms of collected data, stopping power and scattering power, may result in a sharper image. Initial testing harnessed typical filtering techniques to improve the combined image, but did not result in sharpened boundaries. Further testing harnessed knowledge of the data itself, such as respective contained information, and medical imaging techniques to improve the combined image. Qualitative analysis by inspection was verified quantitatively by calculating the FWHM. These results showed an average improvement of 0.3967 mm for the combined image compared to the stopping power image.