3D digital breast tomosynthesis image reconstruction using anisotropic total variation minimization

This paper presents a compressed sensing based reconstruction method for 3D digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) imaging. Algebraic reconstruction technique (ART) has been in use in DBT imaging by minimizing the isotropic total variation (TV) of the reconstructed image. The resolution in DBT differs in sagittal and axial directions which should be encountered during the TV minimization. In this study we develop a 3D anisotropic TV (ATV) minimization by considering the different resolutions in different directions. A customized 3D Shepp-logan phantom was generated to mimic a real DBT image by considering the overlapping tissue and directional resolution issues. Results of the ART, ART+3D TV and ART+3D ATV are compared using structural similarity (SSIM) diagram.