With the increased use of medical imaging, particularly computed tomography (CT), there is an increasing awareness of the possible population risk associated with CT radiation. It is, now more than ever, necessary to justify an imaging exam to ensure that a particular technology is effectively utilized for the overall benefit of the patient and also that any potential harm is minimized. Such a goal is ideally achieved through clinical trials. However, it is exceedingly impractical and costly to attempt a clinical tral for the many new nuances of an increasing number of technological offerings in CT. Virtual clinical trials can address this growing, critical need. Such trials can provide results quickly an cost effectively prior to clinical implementation. They can be used as a precursor to more targeted clinical trials or as their replacement if a sufficient level of realism is achieved. Virtal clinical trials require a virtual patient population. In our prior funded project, we developed a population of 400 computational 4D XCAT whole-body human models capable of simulating a wide range of anatomical variations across representative ages, genders, and body habitus. The models have been used in numerous research projects, specifically for the optimization of nuclear medicine modalities and CT dosimetry. Despite this progress, the current XCAT phantom library is totally inadequate for the realistic optimization of CT imaging devices and protocols as tissue heterogeneities and perfusion have remained un-modeled. Without these, the phantoms cannot be used to assess image quality. The simulated images are far too unrealistic to be representative of actual patients, lacking intra-organ variability and contrast dynamics. With the growing use of CT, the need for virtual clinical trials is at an all-time high t optimize image quality versus dose. In this study, we plan to address these limitations and create a complete framework for developing virtual clinical trials for CT. Specifically, we will develop the next generation of XCAT phantoms including anatomical textures and lesions to model tissue heterogeneity within the organs (Aim 1). This will result in the first library of phantoms capable of simulating patient quality CT data suitable to conduct studies to investigate diagnostic quality as well as dosimetry. We will further expand the XCAT models to include the dynamics of blood flow and thus the perfusion of contrast media (Aim 2). Over 60% of CT imaging involves the use of contrast agents, which despite its profound impact on dose and image quality, have not been incorporated in most optimization studies.
The final aim of the project is to develop an integrated approach to combine the XCAT population with realistic and efficient methods with which to generate and analyze the imaging data, thus creating the first practical platform for virtual trials (Aim 3). The end result of this project will be a comprehensie suite of models and an initial set of tools, available to the imaging community, to run virtual clinical trials in CT, making possible the technological evaluations and optimization that would not be feasible using real human subjects and observers.

Public Health Relevance

The goal of this project is to develop, validate, and distribute to the research community a comprehensive suite of tools to run virtual clinical trials in CT imaging, enabling technological evaluations and optimization that would not be feasible using real human subjects and observers.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01EB001838-11
Application #
9224992
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1)
Program Officer
Shabestari, Behrouz
Project Start
2005-09-22
Project End
2018-12-31
Budget Start
2017-01-01
Budget End
2017-12-31
Support Year
11
Fiscal Year
2017
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Duke University
Department
Radiation-Diagnostic/Oncology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
044387793
City
Durham
State
NC
Country
United States
Zip Code
27705
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Abadi, Ehsan; Segars, William P; Sturgeon, Gregory M et al. (2018) Modeling Lung Architecture in the XCAT Series of Phantoms: Physiologically Based Airways, Arteries and Veins. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 37:693-702
Knoll, Peter; Rahmim, Arman; Gültekin, Selma et al. (2017) Improved scatter correction with factor analysis for planar and SPECT imaging. Rev Sci Instrum 88:094303
Hoye, Jocelyn; Zhang, Yakun; Agasthya, Greeshma et al. (2017) Organ dose variability and trends in tomosynthesis and radiography. J Med Imaging (Bellingham) 4:031207
Sahbaee, Pooyan; Segars, W Paul; Marin, Daniele et al. (2017) The Effect of Contrast Material on Radiation Dose at CT: Part I. Incorporation of Contrast Material Dynamics in Anthropomorphic Phantoms. Radiology 283:739-748
Sturgeon, Gregory M; Park, Subok; Segars, William Paul et al. (2017) Synthetic breast phantoms from patient based eigenbreasts. Med Phys 44:6270-6279
Carver, Diana E; Kost, Susan D; Fraser, Nicholas D et al. (2017) Realistic phantoms to characterize dosimetry in pediatric CT. Pediatr Radiol 47:691-700
Sanders, Jeremiah; Tian, Xiaoyu; Segars, William Paul et al. (2017) Automated, patient-specific estimation of regional imparted energy and dose from tube current modulated computed tomography exams across 13 protocols. J Med Imaging (Bellingham) 4:013503
Robins, Marthony; Solomon, Justin; Sahbaee, Pooyan et al. (2017) Techniques for virtual lung nodule insertion: volumetric and morphometric comparison of projection-based and image-based methods for quantitative CT. Phys Med Biol 62:7280-7299
Solomon, Justin; Marin, Daniele; Roy Choudhury, Kingshuk et al. (2017) Effect of Radiation Dose Reduction and Reconstruction Algorithm on Image Noise, Contrast, Resolution, and Detectability of Subtle Hypoattenuating Liver Lesions at Multidetector CT: Filtered Back Projection versus a Commercial Model-based Iterative Reconst Radiology 284:777-787

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