Dual-energy X-rays absorptiometry using a 2D digital radiography detector. Application to bone densitometry

Dual Energy X-Rays Absorptiometry (DXA) is commonly used to separate soft tissues and bone contributions in radiographs. This decomposition leads to bone mineral density (BMD) measurement. Most clinical systems use pencil or fan collimated X-Rays beam with mono detectors or linear arrays. On these systems BMD is computed from bi-dimensional (2D) images obtained by scanning. Our objective is to take advantage of the newly available flat panels detectors and to propose a DXA approach without scanning, based on the use of cone beam X-Rays associated with a 2D detector. This approach yields bone densitometry systems with an equal X and Y resolution, a fast acquisition and a reduced risk of patient motion. Scatter in this case becomes an important issue. While scattering is insignificant on collimated systems, its level and geometrical structure may severely alter BMD measurement on cone beam systems. In our presentation an original DXA method taking into account scattering is proposed. This new approach leads to accurate BMD values. In order to evaluate the accuracy of our new approach, a phantom representative of the spine regions tissue composition (bone, fat, muscle) has been designed. The comparison between the expected theoretical and the reconstructed BMD values validates the accuracy of our method. Results on anthropomorphic spine and hip regions are also presented.