Analysis of image-reconstruction algorithms for circular, cone-beam CT by Hotelling observer performance on a detection task.

We apply task-based evaluation methods to image-reconstruction in circular cone-beam CT. The particular task considered is that of detection of a micro-calcification of known location in a known background; namely a signal-known-exactly/background-known-exactly (SKE/BKE) detection task. The image-reconstruction algorithms are evaluated based on efficiency for detection. This task-based metric can be applied to any linear image-reconstruction algorithm, such as the FDK algorithm or other more recent approximate methods for image-reconstruction in circular, cone-beam CT.