Automatic selection of the log-subtraction decomposition parameters for dual energy chest radiography

A method of decomposing soft tissue and bone images from low and high-energy images acquired by a digital radiography imaging system using log-subtraction techniques, comprising:

• obtaining the low and high-energy images for a desired anatomy of a patient;
• identifying a patient size of the patient;
• identifying a filtration setting for the digital radiography imaging system;
• obtaining a default log-subtraction decomposition parameter;
• automatically providing a soft tissue log-subtraction decomposition parameter and a bone log-subtraction decomposition parameter by modifying the default log-subtraction decomposition parameter based on the patient size and the filtration setting;
• and
• decomposing the soft tissue and bone images from the low and high-energy images based on the soft tissue and bone log-subtraction decomposition parameters.

A method of producing soft tissue and bone images of the desired anatomy of a patient using log-subtraction techniques, comprising:

• acquiring low and high-energy images of the desired anatomy from a digital radiography imaging system using flat-panel detector technology;
• identifying a patient size of the patient;
• identifying a filtration setting for the digital radiography imaging system;
• obtaining a default log-subtraction decomposition parameter based on energy levels of the low and high-energy images;
• automatically providing a soft tissue log-subtraction decomposition parameter and a bone log-subtraction decomposition parameter by modifying the default log-subtraction decomposition parameter based on the patient size and the filtration setting;
• and
• decomposing soft tissue and bone images of the desired anatomy from the low and high-energy images using the soft tissue and bone log-subtraction decomposition parameters to perform a log-subtraction dual-energy decomposition computation.

A computer program for automatically providing log-subtraction decomposition parameters for decomposing soft tissue and bone images from low and high-energy images acquired from a digital radiography imaging system using log-subtraction techniques, comprising:

• a tangible medium configured to support machine-readable code;
• and
• machine-readable code supported on the medium and including:
• a routine for obtaining a default log-subtraction decomposition parameter based on energy levels of the low and high-energy images;
• and
• a routine for automatically providing a soft tissue log-subtraction decomposition parameter and a bone log-subtraction decomposition parameter by modifying the default log-subtraction decomposition parameter based on a patient size and a filtration setting of the digital radiography imaging system.

A medical imaging system, comprising:

• a digital radiographic imaging system, comprising:
• an x-ray device adapted to generate x-rays;
• a collimator adapted to filter the x-rays in a desired anatomical region of a patient;
• a flat-panel digital x-ray detector adapted to detect x-rays passing through the patient;
• and
• dual-energy control circuitry adapted to acquire low and high-energy images of the desired anatomical region over a time interval;
• and
• an image processing system, comprising:
• an automatic decomposition parameter selection module adapted to compute soft tissue and bone log-subtraction decomposition parameters by modifying a default log-subtraction decomposition parameter based on a patient size category and a filtration setting of the collimator;
• and
• a dual-energy image decomposition module adapted to decompose soft tissue and bone images from the low and high-energy images based on the soft tissue and bone log-subtraction decomposition parameters.