Preliminary study on C-arm technique for nephrolithiasis and kidney stones detection

Nephrolithiasis can be a painful problem due to presence of kidney stones. In this paper, we investigated a C-arm tomographic technique with digital detector for nephrolithiasis and kidney stones detection. The studies were based on a C-arm system to provide two-dimensional (2D) x-ray projection images with a single sweep of both x-ray source and detector over limited angular view that is less than 180°. Our experiments were done with kidney phantom and low radiation dosage. Datasets of 21 two-dimensional projection views of a kidney phantom with embedded kidney stones over view angle of 40° were acquired. Tomographic reconstruction methods were developed for C-arm technique. Computer simulation was investigated to compare results in both spatial and frequency domains. Preliminary results demonstrated that the capability of our C-arm tomographic technique to generate volume information for nephrolithiasis and kidney stone detection. As a traditional three-dimensional (3D) nephrolithiasis and kidney stones detection technique, computed tomography (CT) provides detailed cross-sectional images as well as 3D structure of kidney from moving the x-ray beam in a circle around the body. However, CT scans of the kidney may include risks of allergy to contrast dye. It also includes relatively higher exposure to radiation which is more than regular x-rays. Our C-arm tomographic technique has great potentials to provide detailed 3D information, especially for patients who need to get x-ray scanning repletion after undergoing extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy to track stone migration and fragmentation to provide the size and the location of kidney stones with low exposure of radiation compare with computed tomography (CT) scans.