A novel approach for reducing metal artifacts due to metallic dental implants

We present a conceptually new method for metal artifact reduction (MAR). This method can be used when a patient has multiple metal objects with small sizes. The proposed algorithm uses raw CT data (sinogram) instead of reconstructed CT slices. First, the projection data affected by metal objects (missing projections) are detected in sinogram. Then, the missing projections are replaced by corresponding unaffected projections in other slices or opposite view. Finally, the modified sinogram is transferred back to the CT scanner device where CT slices are regenerated using the built-in reconstruction operator. The obtained results on real patients demonstrate the superiority of our method compared with the traditional projection-interpolation method.