Coronary Artery Calcium Detection from Dual-Energy Radiography

Forum Details

Date: November 15, 2024 12-1 PM Eastern time

Speakers: Adam Wang, PhD

Coronary artery calcification (CAC) is a key indicator of cardiovascular risk and is currently measured using cardiac CT. We aim to create a more accessible and cost-effective method for CAC quantification using dual-energy chest radiographs, enabled by a novel dual-layer x-ray detector and advanced algorithms. Our detector design integrates direct and indirect amorphous selenium conversion layers to enhance spatial resolution and material differentiation. To guide detector development and algorithm training, we simulate high-resolution dual-energy radiographs from clinical cardiac CT data, employing a 3D up-sampling framework that improves the sharpness of interfaces such as calcium/tissue or tissue/air. The approach also holds promise for its broad applicability in generating high-resolution digital phantoms from clinical CT images.