4D CBCT reconstruction with TV regularization on a dynamic software phantom

In 2011 a primal-dual optimization algorithm was proposed by Chambolle and Pock. This algorithm is well fit for 4D CBCT reconstruction with spatial and temporal total variation (TV) regularization, and several authors recently used this approach. In this paper, we also implement a version of this algorithm, and assess its capabilities for dual-energy dynamic angiography of the brain on a software phantom. The phantom is created by adding an artificial vasculature, generated with constrained constructive optimization, to the Brainweb phantom, and by calculating blood flow dynamics through this vasculature based on hydrodynamic equations. A dual-energy CBCT acquisition is simulated, split into water and iodine components, and a 4D iodine image is reconstructed. This suggests the viability of 4D CBCT techniques based on TV for dual-energy dynamic brain angiography.