Coded-Aperture Compressed Sensing X-Ray Luminescence Tomography.

Objective: The purpose of this work is to introduce and study a novel imaging geometry for X-ray luminescence computed tomography (XLCT), termed coded aperture compressive X-ray luminescence tomography (CAC-XLCT).

Methods: CAC-XLCT is studied through simulations of X-ray and diffuse light propagation and the implementation of a compressed sensing image reconstruction algorithm.

Results: CAC-XLCT is compared against cone beam XLCT considering simulated targets with varying complexity, and it is found to offer a remarkable enhancement in spatial resolution and image quality with only a small overhead in image acquisition time.

Conclusions And Significance: XLCT has been mainly investigated so far in pencil beam and cone beam excitation geometries which suffer from either very long image acquisition time or low spatial resolution and accuracy. CAC-XLCT presents a very promising alternative, which can offer simultaneously high spatial resolution, high image quality, and fast image acquisition, appropriate for in vivo imaging.