Reducing the spiral ct slice thickness using super resolution

An approach for improving the z-axis resolution of spiral CT using super resolution (SR) technology in the post processing step is proposed in this work. As the spiral CT has the ability to produce over-lapped slice images without over-lapped scanning, the sub-slice thickness shifts in z-axis require neither change in hardware nor any additional radiation dose. The thinner slice is obtained by combining those over-lapped slices and applying the SR algorithm. It is secure and convenient to be used in clinical cases. We use an algorithm which introduces the Papoulis-Gerchberg extrapolation within the Iterative back-projection method to process the reconstructed image serial. Experiments on phantom and patient demonstrate effectiveness of this approach. And the slice thickness limit of spiral CT system is broken by this approach.